About Group Ditch the Script on ‘Words’ – Song Premiere

Indie experimenters About Group offer a first taste of their upcoming third album, Between the Walls, with “Words,” a lethargic track that plods through a smokescreen of hazy keyboards and sitar. Synth bass juts through squeals of feedback while singer Alexis Taylor laments, “Words are a dying breed / they can’t say what we mean.”

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“‘Words’ is a song I started writing on a guitar, in an About Group soundcheck in Helsinki. By the time we recorded the album version I had removed the guitar and replaced it with these synth chords which put fifths with each note, so all the chords end up sounding pretty strange and discordant,” Taylor tells Rolling Stone. “The song has to do with the idea that words aren’t always equivalent to the multiple meanings of what we wish to say – but that a song, with words, can still continue on and have meanings despite that apparent dichotomy. It’s also about love and friendship and not punching doors, but pushing them open instead.”

About Group formed in 2009 as an improvisational outlet for Taylor, who fronts Hot Chip, and guitarist John Coxon (of Spring Heel Jack and Spiritualized), keyboardist Pat Thomas and This Heat drummer Charles Hayward. Get an exclusive listen to “Words” below and preorder the album here.