Glass Animals have shared the wavy new single ‘Vampire Bat’ – check it out below.
The track marks the fifth instalment in their Fresh Fruit series, a constantly evolving project that allows frontman Dave Bayley and the band to experiment with new music and collaborators outside the focus of their core album work.
Previous Fresh Fruit releases have so far included ‘Gold Lime’, ‘Lose Control’ with Joey Bada$$, ‘Tokyo Drifting’ with Denzel Curry and ‘I Don’t Wanna Talk (I Just Wanna Dance)’ with Albert Hammond Jr.
‘Vampire Bat’ sees Bayley and co. teaming up with producer Rob Bisel (SZA) on the genre-blending earworm, which many fans have already noted seems to call back to the hip-hop bounce heard on ‘Dreamland‘.
Many have been left puzzled by the cryptic lyrics – “All in my face, Don Quixote, hee-haw / Spank the monkey, more bananas than Diddy Kong / Shattered like a melon thrown from the Eiffel Tower” – and have spotted references to previous Fresh Fruit tracks littered throughout the song.
In other news about the band, they announced an extension of their ‘Tour Of Earth’ live shows earlier this year, with a batch of extra North American shows to continue this month.
The tour began last August in support of their fourth studio album ‘I Love You So F***ing Much’, which was released in April that year. They originally played strings of shows in the US, the UK and Europe, with support from artists including The Big Moon, Kevin Abstract and Blondshell. Visit here for remaining tickets.
Glass Animals will play:
AUGUST
12 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater*#
15 – Nampa, ID – Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater=
16 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater=
17 – Stateline, NV – Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys*=
^Festival Date
*Non-Live Nation Date
+With SOFIA ISELLA
=With Orla Gartland
#Support TBA
It follows the band sharing a new video for ‘Take A Slice’, which changes with each watch. The track featured on their 2016 album ‘How To Be A Human Being’, and has had a renaissance on social media in recent months – pulling in roughly two million daily views on TikTok back in June.
Last month, Bayley spoke to NME at Mad Cool Festival about the surprise resurgence of the track, and said it felt like “a flashback to the past”, and the fan demand for it means they now play in every set.
He also touched on when we might hear some new music, saying Glass Animals being on the road made it harder to work on. “We happened to have a one month break in touring, and I was so excited to get back to the studio, I just vomited music all over the place and I’ve got a couple bits that are nearly done.”
He added that some fans had stumbled across them on the internet after he lost a USB stick with new music on it. “Someone found it,” Bayley said, “and they snuck one of the bits out, so we just played into it.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, he hinted at a collaboration with Florence + The Machine, who Glass Animals worked with in 2022, and appeared to hint at their imminent return earlier this week.
While he couldn’t reveal too much at the time, he shared that working with her was “one of the coolest things” he’d ever done. “She’s a force of nature,” Bayley said. “What an amazing songwriter, I’ve learned so much from her – and I can’t say anymore!”
