British rock band Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes return with a brand new single titled ‘My Town’, featuring Joe Talbot of IDLES. The exhilarating comeback track is a rallying call, a statement of intent and the first piece of music released in over a year.
Produced by guitarist Dean Richardson for the first time in the band’s career, the result is incendiary. ‘My Town’ solidifies the pair as one of the most exciting partnerships in British rock music and Carter – since his early days in hardcore punk band Gallows and then as Pure Love – as a vital voice in UK music, rallying against injustice, the patriarchy, right-wing politics and toxic masculinity.
‘My Town’ is a bruising metaphor for “our collective mental health falling apart,” says Carter. It is a metaphoric look at the collective mental health of a nation after a barrage of lockdowns. Imagining every person as a town and its residents, the town representing the mental stability and wellbeing of that person. Frank says:
“It’s easy to dissociate when it’s someone else’s problem but we are each responsible for keeping the streets clean, looking out for our fellow neighbours and acting with kindness and respect as we walk through life. We can look into this town and see the seedy underbelly, the dirt, the disdain, the undercurrent of hate and despair. And then we are reminded that My Town looks just like yours, and no one gives a fuck at all and if we don’t start looking after ourselves soon then we are all going to be in big trouble”.
The song features Joe Talbot of IDLES. Carter says he saw Talbot’s Bristol band perform and couldn’t stop crying – “they had a tremendous effect on me” – and the two have since become firm friends. Carter invited Talbot to guest, and the result is this stand out track.