cowboyy take on the pain of moving on with new single “melancholy (chain)”

Despite its inception around 2024, the original name for “melancholy (chain)” has stuck with cowboyy. Before becoming the second single off their forthcoming EP revocder, it was collectively known as “chain to pain”, a title the guitar rockers were already using when playing it live in 2024. See, “melancholy (chain)” is, essentially, about parting ways. Relationship fallouts, an end to a friendship, and “a death to love”. The eventual change was considerably more mundane than either title suggests, as there were simply too many songs beginning with the letter 'c'.

Sonically, “melancholy (chain)” reaches even further into the past. Its opening riff, headed by Kai Smith, has an early 2000s pop punk pull, before the song starts twisting back towards cowboyy’s math rock influence. For songwriter and guitarist Stan Powell, that isn’t accidental. “I guess it’s kind of a personal thing for me, but it’s maybe music that I would have written when I was younger,” he explains.“ I was trying to go back to that kind of thing. I just wanted to write something that was personally like a throwback to stuff that I used to write when I was younger.”

Following cowboyy’s debut Epic The Movie EP, which made a splash in 2023, Powell’s new approach to vocal stylings was fed by a fascination with Irish showband The Dixies. “Now I’m thinking about it, I would definitely say that the vocals are really inspired by The Dixies. I really wanted something to have a bit more power behind the vocals, rather than the spoken word stuff that we’ve had on our EP before.”

Yet, there’s still plenty to dig into beneath the song’s poppier surface. Powell points towards the guitar and pedal work, but particularly Dan Haysom’s drumming. “All of Dan playing the drums is really fucking hard,” he praises. “It’s more of a poppy song... I guess people might overlook the drumming. Yeah, the drumming is pretty crazy on there.”

revocder is set to land 25 September via Big Scary Monsters, with “melancholy (chain)” being the newest written song on an 9-track EP largely dating back to 2022-23. As Powell puts it, “it definitely leans more in the direction that we’re going to go after the EP.”