Kevin Bronson on November 18th, 2017

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“The Giant,” the new single from loud ’n’ proud L.A. garage-rockers the Dead Ships, is a boot-stomping, riff-tastic cry into the abyss. “It’s a song about the idea that you can be a good person — sweet, moral, genuine — but your actions will ultimately define you,” frontman Devlin McCluskey says. “Compulsive behavior feels dark and largely misunderstood, the song is trying to tap into that.”

The single, released Friday, arrived as the quartet — McCluskey along with Christopher Spindelilus, Chad Philipps and Alex Moore — were circling the skies over L.A., having written more than an album’s worth of new material and trying to decide where to record the follow-up to their 2016 album “Citycide,” released just after the band got the chance to play Coachella. The foursome was approached by Hollywood’s United Recording Studios, fka Ocean Way, about doing a one-off in the historic room. The project involved following an indie band at work in the studio from start to finish in the making of a new song. (The making-of was even documented.)

So Wesley Seidman (producer/mixer/engineer for Brian Wilson) produced, and Gavin Lurssen (Queens of the Stone Age) mastered. Says McCluskey: “Our record ‘Cityside’ was pretty much recorded live but that felt like the wrong aesthetic for the vibe of this song. We wanted to do something that hit harder, something simpler and more direct. United Recording was perfect for that. It’s one of the few world-class studios left, and we can’t believe we were fortunate enough to record there.”

||| Stream: “The Giant”