Channeling the speed of youth and the heaviness of a fleshy, lived life in equal proportion, Upchuck’s second LP is a Trojan Horse par excellence, craftily smuggling in waves of sentimental emotion and clever pop songwriting under a veil of pulsing rhythms and scorching riffs.

What binds Upchuck together is a purity of intention, an organic loyalty to a thick knot of uncalculated friendships, struggles, and desires. These are songs about the joy of continuing to live, songs that find each other in the rush of a crushing reality, propelling the listener onward towards a collective release, however brief it may last.

Themes of surviving through the night, youth-blinded love, cheap champagne soaked back-alley parties, and chaotic street protests are subsumed under a single unifying thread: the needs we have for one another, our shared hunger for connection. In a world saturated with arbitrary rules and paper-thin moralism, Upchuck offer freedom through sensation, a type of unserious transcendence found through the swirl of bodies melting into one another in the passion of dance.

With Bite the Hand That Feeds, Upchuck isn’t trying to tell anyone how to live. Rather, they are simply trying to find a way to make life more worth living for both themselves and their friends - if the music compels you to move, you might as well consider yourself their friend too.

Upchuck absconded to Southern California to record Bite the Hand That Feeds, enlisting the production talents of Ty Segall and the airy reprieve of his secluded Topanga Canyon home studio.

Upchuck credits Segall, who recorded the entire record live to tape over the span of 5 days, with helping to elevate the arrangements of their second LP to bold new heights—fans of Segall’s extensive catalog will undoubtedly recognize the shadow of his creative touch in commanding, layered drum polyrhythms, tasteful use of oddball effects, and fuzzed out, every-guitar-pushed-into-the-red ethos.