Stream: Giant Killer Bats, ‘Berlin’

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Giant Killer Bats

After the 2016 dissolution of promising psych-rockers Talk in Tongues after just one album, McCoy Kirgo tried his hand at electro-pop before returning to his wheelhouse, ’90s-styled indie-rock, with his solo venture Giant Killer Bats.

Instrumental in that shift was a 2018 touring gig Kirgo did with L.A. rockers Teenage Wrist. “Just being in the van listening to what they were listening to brought me back, and I realized what I love about songwriting,” McCoy says of his daily dose of bands such as Oasis, the Verve, the Cranberries and other British/Irish acts from that era. “Big guitar music with really strong melodies. That’s what brings me joy.”

In January, Giant Killer Bats released “Expected Gunman,” the first single from an EP due March 26 out via Terrible Records’ Flexible Distribution. Today brings the release of “Berlin,” another single that finds Kirgo in his happy place, singing in the upper registers atop trenchant guitars. Oh, to have bittersweet blasts like this on the rock landscape again.

For Kirgo, the EP represents the end of an era. The release has some of the final recordings made in the home studio in the house in which he was reared. He moved across town last year, a major shift that came amid the pandemic.

“I feel so lucky to be able to make music in this time. It’s been such an important outlet for me,” Kirgo says. “I’m grateful to work with good people, and to have songwriting, and to be able to sustain relationships. I’m grateful for life.”

||| Stream: “Berlin”

||| Also: Stream “Expected Gunman”

||| Previously: “Static”