At the start of 2020, everything was looking up for Mannequin Pussy. The Philadelphia punk band had released their third album, Patience, to abundant critical acclaim, and was touring steadily behind it. After nearly a decade of playing, the band finally had gotten the chance to turn music into a full-time occupation. And then, just as their career was lifting off, the world around them collapsed. COVID-19 reached the United States, rescinding life as many people knew it. Live music shut down. Mannequin Pussy had just played a final show in Chicago when the group had to cancel the remainder of their tour and travel back to their home city. For a while, it seemed like maybe the lull would be temporary, a brief pause before things could resume as they were. And then the numbers ballooned, and the months stretched on, and memories of rooms packed with strangers started to feel alien, dangerous even in imagination.
Mannequin Pussy’s new Perfect EP bursts forth from those sprawling months of social isolation and internet-fueled anxiety. After spending most of the year apart from each other and everyone else in 2020, the members of the band — Missy on lead vocals and guitar, Colins “Bear” Regisford on bass, and Kaleen Reading on drums — decided to book studio time and work together in person again. They brought two pre-written songs into the session, but opted to write new material together on the fly from the excitement of reunion. “We just figured if we forced ourselves into this situation where someone could hit ‘record,’ something might come out,” Missy says. “We’d never written that way before.”
What came out of that compressed session time were some of Mannequin Pussy’s most furious, incandescent songs yet. The self-imposed restraint and careful habituation of the past year cracked open. On the EP’s title track, Missy sings about the practice of condensing your daily life into a manicured stream of images for social media, an urge that only intensified after daily life grew barren. What happens to the social impulse when everyone you love or even like is leveled into a set of pixels — when you’re compelled repeatedly to funnel your own life into that algorithmic slurry, and wait to see how it’s received? “It was a really weird psychological experience, being bombarded by images of other people constantly when you are not around a lot of other people,” Missy says. “I’m still understanding the way we use the internet to make our lives feel and look perfect. Our lives aren’t supposed to look good right now.”
Even the songs written before the pandemic take on a new valence after a year of its frustrations. “I’m in control / That’s what I tell myself when all the walls around me close in,” Missy sings in the prescient opening lines of “Control.” Tuneful and brash, with a white-hot molten core, the songs on Perfect thrash against the learned helplessness that has settled in on the cellular level under lockdown. Social media algorithms apply pressure to perform even from the depths of that powerlessness, to construct the image of a bountiful life in times of extreme scarcity. From the smolder of “Pigs is Pigs” to the melancholic, contemplative “Darling,” Perfect digs into the cracks of that compulsory veneer, and let loose everything simmering beneath it. The anger, frustration, loneliness, and resentment of a year spent locked away all come sputtering forth. And once they’ve rushed out, once the air clears from their tumult, there’s suddenly a little more space to seek out calm, to find solace. There’s an opening forward into whatever comes next in the rush and the mess of living.
Destroy Boys
Named as one of Spotify’s 2024 New Noise Artists To Watch, Destroy Boys have no intention of slowing down. Punk rock might have been the force that brought Destroy Boys together, but it’s far from the only touchstone for their music. From their first record through their fourth, they have continued to write and sing about what they know and drive fans to notice them. School drama and elitist cliques encountered in their teens have given way to the pain of relationships and the inherent feelings of misunderstanding and isolation that is all too common for young people navigating a hybrid of physical and digital worlds. The band has recently toured with some of the most legendary groups in pop-punk, from Blink-182 to Pierce The Veil.
Started in Sacramento in 2015 by Alexia Roditis and Violet Mayugba while they were still in high school, initially the band released acoustic demos on Bandcamp. Destroy Boys’ first proper record, Sorry, Mom remains a classic for the band’s fans, having spawned the underground hit I Threw Glass At My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m On Probation. The follow up record, Make Room, recorded by Martin Cooke (Death Cab for Cutie, Of Monsters and Men) was tracked in just 4 days and yielded favorites such as Crybaby and Duck Eat Duck World (later featured on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater soundtrack.)
Adding drummer Narsai Malik to the fold in 2018, Destroy Boys began to tour in earnest, venturing as far as the UK, opening for numerous up-and-coming indie bands. As their own songs took off on Spotify and TikTok they signed with Los Angeles label Hopeless Records in 2020. Working with Philadelphia producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Circa Survive) their first Hopeless release was the snarling, one minute ripper, Muzzle. The eventual LP Open Mouth, Open Heart, released in late 2021 chronicled a band dealing with familiar pandemic-frustration and the rise of online gossip and bullying – and they dealt with these head on with songs ranging from Escape to Locker Room Bully.
Rolling into 2022, the band toured the UK with Alkaline Trio and Taking Back Sunday before crisscrossing the US several times as they continued to support the LP. With lauded performances at Riot Fest, Lollapalooza Chicago, Dia De Los Deftones, and more, they have since released their fourth album, Funeral Soundtrack #4. Working with Carlos De La Garza (Bad Religion, Paramore, The Linda Lindas), the recordings dig further back to embrace everything from garage punk to 90’s college indie rock.
Through 2023, 2024, and early 2025, the band picked up numerous tours in the US – including support for Blink-182 for a summer tour, Pierce the Veil on a fall tour, and headline dates in both the US, UK and EU. With lauded performances at Coachella, they returned to the UK and Ireland for Slam Dunk Fest, several headline shows, and then multiple runs in Europe, taking in notable festivals including Roskilde, SBAM! and Sziget. Along the way fans experienced newer singles Beg For The Torture and Shadow (I’m Breaking Down) – which charted on Alt Rock Radio for over 11+ weeks. In addition, Spotify named Destroy Boys one of 2024’s New Noise Artists To Watch, listing Shadow (I’m Breaking Down) as an essential track.
Each year just gets bigger and bigger for Destroy Boys. In 2024 they headlined Peachy Fest in San Diego, hosted their very own 3rd annual Destroy Fest in Los Angeles, and hit Redding and Leeds on their European summer tour. Their long awaited fourth record, Funeral Soundtrack #4, was released on August 9 with a killer track called You Hear Yes featuring Mannequin Pussy and Scowl.
2025 started with a bang as the band played multiple sold-out headline shows in the UK and Europe. Touring plans for the year include a spring west coast headline tour, as well as performances at Warped Tour Long Beach, When We Were Young, Rock Am Ring, Rock Im Park, Outside Lands, CBGB Fest, and more. The best of Destroy Boys is yet to come.
“‘Funeral Soundtrack #4’ is the culmination of all their hardwork, resulting in an album that’s as expansive as it is forceful, as honest as it is cutthroat. Destroy Boys are reaching their peak, and there’s nothing that’ll slow them down.” – Punktastic
