The House Flies’ “Derelict Crawl” feels like wandering through a familiar place after everything that once made it feel safe has started to rot. The first single from their upcoming album Lions and Ore, the track digs deeper into the Moline, Illinois band’s post-punk and gothic-rock foundations, building an atmosphere where repetition becomes increasingly unsettling. It lets dread creep in gradually before finally giving it teeth.
The song opens with steady, building drum thumps that create a sense of trepidation, as though something is approaching just beyond the listener’s field of vision. Guitars brood and strum beneath the tension, while Alex Riggen’s high voice initially floats lightly through the arrangement, carrying an eerie echo that makes the vocals feel almost detached from the physical world. There is an unusual delicacy to these early passages. The restraint makes the eventual release hit harder.
When the chorus arrives, Riggen’s voice tightens with frustration and begins to soar as the guitars distort into something considerably harsher. Sharp grinding riffs tear through the atmosphere, turning the song’s previously drifting unease into something physical and claustrophobic. The repeated “We don’t belong” grows heavier each time it returns.
The lyrics only deepen that strange sensation. Images of dial tones, leather, summer heat, collapsing bodies, cracks, and things shrinking or slipping away create a surreal landscape where the human and the decaying seem inseparable. Even the repeated refrain feels deliberately unresolved, as though the characters are trapped inside a cycle they cannot quite escape.
In “Derelict Crawl,” by the final repetitions, what began as a distant, uneasy crawl has become an oppressive pulse. As an introduction to Lions and Ore, it promises a record of interest not merely in darkness, but in the slow, uncomfortable process of watching things come apart.
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Review by: Naomi Joan