Fire Track: Flat Worms – “Suburban Swans”

Flat Worms new LP, Witness Marks, is coming out September 22, 2023 on Ty Segall’s Drag City imprint GOD?. “Suburban Swans”, is the bands second single from the record and it is a punchy, grinding post-punk track. Meditating on our perceptions of reality, free will and the lack of agency we have in how our world is shaped. Lead singer Will Ivy contemplates how we can control our narratives in a world that feels entirely out of our control, focusing on his experience growing up in the Arizona suburbs, and going back to that place as an adult to watch the encroaching, voracious development swallowing the land.

Speaking to “Suburban Swans”, Will Ivy writes, “The last time we were in the UK, I learned that every mute swan in all of England legally belongs to the royal family. In the swan’s mind, it is free, living its life as a wild animal. It is totally unaware of the system in which it has been claimed as property by a human establishment. This made me think about freewill, the perception of freewill, or the lack thereof. Growing up in suburban Arizona, I felt stuck, angsty, so eager to break out and pursue my own life and independence. This place, this time, this experience barely even feels like it happened to the same person now. Since I left, my family has all left this neighborhood. More and more stucco structures become less and less unique, making all the places we are from harder to distinguish from one another. The memories begin to decay with nobody there to maintain a presence. What are memories worth if they are as intangible as dreams? If we have no control over our own narratives, maybe we are not so different from the swans.”

You can order the new album HERE.