Name: Bite
Brand: A Giant Dog

Tax rate EU

Default:19

Supplier EU

375 Media

Total Cap

Format detail

Colour details

Discogs ID

Limited edition

Colour

Format Music EU

Extended format

Extended format: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Download code

Download code: No

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Release date

2023-08-25

Format multiplier

Catalogue number

159328

UPC / Barcode

673855082929

159327

673855082912

Artist

A Giant Dog

Label EU

Merge

Genre EU

Alternative / Modern

Newest Listed Items

The moment the needle drops on&nbsp;Bite, the new A Giant Dog record, one’s conception of what an A Giant Dog record sounds like bends like space and time around a starship running at lightspeed. The biggest point of departure is that&nbsp;Bite&nbsp;is&nbsp;a concept album, concerning characters who find themselves moving in and out of avirtual reality called Avalonia.A Giant Dog’s first album of original songs since 2017’s&nbsp;Toy,&nbsp;Bite&nbsp;finds the band - Sabrina Ellis, Andrew Cashen, Danny Blanchard, Graham Low, and Andy Bauer - at&nbsp;their peak as musicians, challenging themselves with more complex arrangements and subject matter that forced them out of their heads and into those of the characters&nbsp;who occupy this supposed paradise. “We had to find ourselves within, or project&nbsp;ourselves into, the principal characters. We developed them, got to know their minds, emotions, and motivations, and then expressed those in nine songs,” Ellis explains.Themes of addiction, gender fluidity, living ethically in a capitalist society, physical&nbsp;autonomy, avarice, grief, and consent bubble beneath the promised happiness of Avalonia. This is evident in songs like “Different Than,” where Ellis sings, “My body can’t explain the things my mind don’t comprehend” as if societal gender pressure is squeezing its protagonist out of their skin.The songs on&nbsp;Bite&nbsp;are full of bombast, at turns calling to mind the spacefaring operatic&nbsp;rock of Electric Light Orchestra and the high drama of an Ennio Morricone film&nbsp;score. The album’s narrative sweep is epic in scope, its characters facing impossible&nbsp;odds and certain doom, existing as comfortably with the sci-fi grandiosity of Thin&nbsp;Lizzy’s&nbsp;Jailbreak&nbsp;as it does with the high fantasy of Dio and Iron Maiden.Appropriately, A Giant Dog came to this narrative armed to the teeth with new ideas, unleashing synthesizers and string sections to create what Ellis describes as orchestral, symphonic, futuristic punk. To achieve this, they left their home turf of Austin, Texas, for La Cuve Studio, just outside of Angers, France. Living in the French countryside, A Giant Dog laid down their vision of the future against a decidedly pastoral back- drop. On walks from Angers to La Cuve, Ellis says that they “would see many things, and also nothing at all. Swans on the river. Romani people living in little trailers, with&nbsp;a side hut built for their dog. A juggler on a unicycle—not fucking with you.” “We&nbsp;thought we wouldn’t be allowed back in France after this trip, to be honest,” they continued. “Five loud, stomping, clapping, rowdy Americans who ran through the streets of Angers for three weeks in November 2022.”The experience capped two years of planning and writing, fleshing out the universe&nbsp;of Avalonia beyond the bounds of most concept albums. The resulting nine songs do not merely occupy this space: They’ve lived in it, and they want out.

Bite

Music EU