The Serfs Release Beat Me Down

The Serfs’ new album, Half Eaten By Dogs, is out next Friday, October 27th via Trouble in Mind, and today, they present the album’s third single, “Beat Me Down.” It’s one of the most immediate and catchiest tracks off of Half Eaten By Dogs, as synth and guitar elevate chanting vocals: “Sitting under ancient tree // only full moon light to see // hands are jagged frozen fear // seeing things in waves of tears // can't beat me down.” The propulsive post-punk of “Beat Me Down” is under the same dark cloud as previously-released tracks “Electric Like An Eel” and “Club Deuce.” The band adds: “For all the sycophants who feed on disdain and contempt; may you go hungry while this one’s coming through the stereo.”

Following the release of Half Eaten By Dogs, The Serfs will celebrate this Halloween with UK band Powerplant at Cincinnati’s Design Collective on Tuesday, October 31st!

The Serfs - Dylan McCartney (vocals, percussion, guitar, bass, electronics), Dakota Carlyle (electronics, bass, guitar, vocals) and Andie Luman (vocals, synths) - are undeniably near the center of the city’s neu-underground scene. Though the band is championed by punk scenes across the states, they put a decidedly Midwestern spin on the modernist twitch of future-forward bands like Total Control or Cold Beat, as well as the post-industrialist dance floor grime of Skinny Puppy, Dark Day, This Heat, and Factrix.

Half Eaten By Dogs is a wide-eyed look through a scope into a heathenish vision, where ice-encrusted synth harmonies command oozing chemical rhythms and drilled-out elemental rock formations. There’s a psychedelic melancholy to it, in both the abstract lyrical sense, with doomed proclamations of natural and supernatural disasters, and the more tangible musical sense. Like their Ohio predecessors, The Serfs seem askew from the art that surrounds them, and they’re proud of it. Half Eaten By Dogs may be a step further down into the catacombs for the band, but if the principle of correspondence is correct, then they could be on their way to somewhere higher.

Courtney Phenicie

Courtney Phenicie is the Editor-in-Chief of CincyMusic, Director of Content Strategy at Patchboard, and an alum of Northern Kentucky University. She enjoys live music with strangers, singing in the car, and supporting local music.