Back with their third new single of the year following ‘Leopard Print Coat’ and ‘Living Room Floor’, West Auckland “post-surf” rockers Double Parked have dropped their latest single, ‘Scars / Sober’, arriving just in time to soundtrack the Aotearoa Summer season ahead.
‘Scars / Sober’ finds the five-piece band exploring the aftermath of relationships, on a track that’s intricately layered with instrumental transitions and tempo switches, taking listeners on a stirring and epic emotional journey that shapeshifts from surf-rock, to punk, to psychedelic, and reggae dub. ‘Scars’, the first half of the five minute 30 second track, finds frontman Tom Purdie’s raw vocals over deep bass lines and jangling guitar chords, before midway through the track enters crashing percussion and jolting riffs.
The tracks second half see’s the pace of the guitars pick up into a frenzied tornado of punk as Double Parked embody the tumultuous energy of a crashing comedown, singing “now that I’m sober, I told you that it’s over, now that it’s over, you wish that you were sober”. The last minute and a half of ‘Scars / Sober’ decelerates into woozy reggae / dub rhythms, symbolising the final phase of the comedown - and simultaneously coming to your senses after being intoxicated in lies.
“Travvie had written that little chord section on the bass guitar, and then we were at Piha in the mist of the night, just sitting there writing, and that’s when I came up with all the lyrics. That’s when we came up with the bones of the song, and then we fleshed it out with the boys from there,” Double Parked detail of the track.
The band add of the track's epic key signature switch ups, “I think half of the switch ups in the song were born out of happy accidents. Chad came up with the idea of going into the 4/4 key signature, and then Carlin wrote the riff on the spot. Somehow, it got into that deep dub towards the end.”
‘Scars / Sober’ follows a huge year for Double Parked following the cult following amassed from their 2023 debut EP Lost in the Groove, the success of previous singles 'Leopard Print Coat’ and ‘Living Room Floor’, opening sets for Australian surf punk band Lazy Ghost and Christchurch indie-rockers The Butlers, a near sold out headline show at Auckland’s Galatos, and upcoming summer festival sets at Le Currents.
Labelling their distinctive sound as self-described “post-surf”, Double Parked are redefining the traditional surf rock subgenre for a new generation, making music that’s quintessentially rooted in New Zealand surf culture while pulling from a melting pot of global influences from psychedelic, to punk, reggae, dub, indie-pop, and much more.
Keep up with Double Parked on Spotify, Instagram and Facebook.