Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
Math rock is having a moment. Between the return of American Football and newcomers Black Midi shaking the scene up, it’s a good time to be making precisely discordant guitar-centric rock.
No one is doing it quite like Peaer, though. “Don’t,” the latest single from the Brooklyn trio, is an exceptionally choreographed song, complete with unique set pieces and scene changes that elevate the track into the upper echelons of the regrettably named genre.
Each instrument on “Don’t” is treated like a rhythm section; a dry guitar lick plays in time with eager-to-explode drums, while a murky bass line drifts in and out of the ether and buries itself under your skin. “Don’t” is so tightly wound that its several moments of quiet catharsis are genuinely surprising; stripping the song of its feedback effects and allowing frontman Peter Katz to coo instead of scream is unsettling, building to the climax the song deserves via carefully crafted bridges.
Katz’s lyrics are pointedly simple, begging a nondescript figure to refrain from being a jackass. “Why do I even need to say this? / You act like you’ve never been in public / Why do you treat others like objects? / Man, I’d hate to see how you treat objects,” he snarls.
Peaer are prepping the release of their next album, A Healthy Earth, due out Aug. 16 via Tiny Engines. Listen to “Don’t” below, then revisit the band’s 2018 stop at the Paste Studio further down while you check out the album’s details.
A Healthy Mind Album Art:
A Healthy Mind Tracklist:
01. Circle
02. Ollie
03. Like You
04. Commercial
05. Don’t
06. Multiverse
07. Joke
08. In My Belly
09. I.K.W.Y.T.
10. Wilbur
11. Have Fun!