After introducing themselves through two loud and blunt singles, THE APE lower the temperature on Touchy. The third preview of their forthcoming debut album trades much of the band’s earlier aggression for a peculiar mixture of post punk melancholy, surf rock brightness and disarming honesty.
The song looks at ageing through the small, faintly absurd details that begin to define everyday life.
"It's about being friends with your robot vacuum cleaner, takeaway coupons, movie endings that suddenly make you cry and the uncomfortable realization that the years are moving a lot faster than they used to.There’s no grand political statement and few lessons to be learned. No self-improvement arc. Just a person sitting in the middle of his own life wondering how he got there.Beneath the jokes and self-deprecation is a person who feels increasingly stuck."
Wit and self-deprecation soften the surface, but neither can entirely conceal the feeling of becoming trapped. Mellow verses carry that unease before bursting into a catchy, surf-inflected chorus that briefly pushes back against the surrounding bleakness. It is a gentler side of THE APE, though not necessarily a more comfortable one.
Touchy will appear on THE APE’s debut album, due in 2027 through Loyal Blood Records.
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