Trophy Scars are back (listen to new song "Panic Machine")

Trophy Scars have been on a bit of a hiatus since 2015, and singer Jerry Jones has been using the time off to focus on his band Super Snake, who released their great debut album Leap of Love this year. Today, Trophy Scars return with their first new song since 2014’s Holy Vacants, “Panic Machine.” It’ll officially be out everywhere on Friday (6/30), but a stream is premiering in this post.

Like a lot of late-period Trophy Scars, it’s a psychedelic, progressive, bluesy epic with Jerry’s gravelly, Tom Waits-y voice leading the way. It’s fleshed out by strings, horns, organs, and more. Jerry tells us, “The feel was really inspired by Ennio Morricone and his spaghetti western pieces. John wrote the music to reflect something both beautiful and subtly violent. I wrote the lyrics about getting something naive being torn away from you… something that you thought you needed but wasn’t truly there to begin with. This is a tribute to that kind of Western, I suppose.” Listen: