SINGLE REVIEW: Disconnect by Tigress
Tigress are really treating us this week as they deliver their explosive new single Disconnect, accompanied by its brand new music video, and unveil the deets of their upcoming debut album!
Forming in Chelmsford, England back in 2015, the alt-rock quintet have built up steam with their steady releases forming a trio of EPs - from 2015's Human, to 2017's Like It Is, and most recent EP Who Cares (2018) - and it's all been leading up to their highly anticipated debut album, Pura Vida, which is set for release on September 3rd via Humble Angel Records. Our first sprinkling of the record came in the form of infectious single Choke late last year, and now the five-piece return to reveal the album and new cut Disconnect.
Disconnect pulls you in with its scuzzy basslines and thumping drumbeats, before hitting you with its full-force eruption of surging instrumentals and hypnotising harmonies. Frontwoman Katy Jackson's silky vocals swerve through distortion-heavy guitar riffs and pummelling drums in the verses, confronting insecurity with lines like "Nobody likes their own reflection / Do you?" in the pre-chorus. Then, the track charges into a hot and highly charged chorus that'll be ricocheting in your head for weeks.
Speaking on the new single, Katy Jackson recounts, "When the instrumental for Disconnect landed in my inbox, I immediately started writing about how unplugged I felt from reality. I had experienced life at its fullest and most connected and then dumped back into such a lonely and isolated existence.”
Recorded and produced at Black Bay Studios by Grammy award-winning engineer Adrian Bushby (Muse, Foo Fighters) and mastered by Harry Hess (Billy Talent, Architects), debut album Pura Vida holds a magnifying glass up at a world that values one-click filters over reality, challenging the destructive impact of societal expectation. From the falsity of social media to external pressures on women’s bodies, Pura Vida delivers an unfiltered view of modern life while seamlessly conjuring elements of grunge, desert rock, and indie as its soundscape.
"The album is about confronting everything you don’t like about yourself, turning it into something you love, and leading a pure life from there," Jackson explains, citing her trip to Costa Rica as inspiration for the album title. Splitting her time between an isolated beach hut and the Central American jungle, it allowed her to truly unplug from the suffocating grind of social media. "That trip changed me," she recalls. "It made me realise how I was so self-absorbed. It made me think I wanted to live a purer life."
Thus Pura Vida is a product of experience and self-reflection, producing Tigress' most honest and contemplative song-writing yet. With Choke and Disconnect proving to be certified tunes, we can't wait to hear what the rest of the album has in store for us.
You can catch Tigress on tour at the following dates:
September
9th Coventry - Arches
10th Bath - Moles
11th Torquay - Burn It Down Festival
October
12th London - Paper Dress Vintage
15th Cologne - Helios37
16th Hamburg - Turmzimmer
17th Berlin - Privatclub
18th Prague - Cafe V Lese
20th Munich - Strom
Watch the Disconnect music video, directed by the band's own Josh 'JJ' Coombes (FINCOTOWN Productions) here:
Stream Disconnect on Spotify and Apple Music
Review by Chloe Robbins
Photography by Rebecca Need-Menear