I Think We’re Ready for the Asteroid
At first, the chewing, the chattering, the cruel, clumsy clutter gnawed at him like mice in the walls…each habit a hammer to the temple. Every cough, every careless word, an offense. But then, like light breaking beneath a slammed door, it struck: he was their irritant, their gnawing noise, their unwelcome weight. All of them itching against each other, sand in the shoe. So they laughed. The joke was mutual. Annoyances dissolved, and hand in hand, they stood grinning as the sky blackened; delighting, together, in the beautiful, burning ruin rushing toward them.
Preoccupations, Calgary’s chroniclers of collapse (fka Viet Cong) have long danced along the edges of dissonance, their work steeped in tension, turmoil, and taut precision. Born from the ashes of the band Women, with Matt Flegel and Mike Wallace joined by Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen, they’ve carved out a name with serrated riffs and spartan rhythms.
Bastards, the newest dispatch from their forthcoming Ill At Ease (out 9 May via Born Losers Records), scowls at humanity’s daily irritations with shades of The Psychedelic Furs, The Church, and Echo and The Bunnymen in their expansive psychedelic sound. Togethe,r we cringe and wince at the dull drone of others, the suffocating sameness. But beneath the bristle lies a bitter balm: the slow, sinking realisation that the aggravation is mutual. Everyone is the bastard in someone else’s bad day. Then, a turning point: a communal shrug, a cracked grin, and a shared smirk at the encroaching collapse of the collective itself. As the world tilts, we toast it together, basking in the bite of mutual annoyance and the thrill of universal undoing.
“The well of dark things to write about seemingly has not dried up, and lyrically, it’s where I still tend to draw from,” Flegel explains. “Draining all my anxieties into a song is often the only way I can get through a day. Some songs exist in a world with barren plains of burnt earth, covered in a dust of shame, dread, death, where all the things I love are things that kill me. Some come from the perspective of another distant world, looking skyward into a science fiction ocean of space, solitude, slight hope. Sometimes I’m looking around at the world that we live in now with incredulity, hilariously dissatisfied with how it’s all turned out, and assuming that it can’t be long before it’s all over. Some songs are just a reflection of me looking down at my feet while I trudge along wondering what I’m doing with myself, and if the ground is going to fall out from underneath me at any given moment.”
The straightforward lyric video rewinds the clock to the pixelated worlds of early ’90s computer games—think Doom or Castle Wolfenstein—transforming the song’s lyrics into the storyline of a retro digital adventure. As any of the Sims we (might’ve) tortured would testify, we’re all bastards.
Preoccupations return with Ill at Ease, their first missive since 2022’s Arrangements and a debut for Born Losers—a fitting home for their brand of tightly-wound turmoil. Across eight tracks, the Calgary quartet crank the pressure, pulling threads from Swans’ relentless churn and Echo and the Bunnymen’s glacial grandeur. Bassist Matt Flegel and drummer Mike Wallace drive each track with ruthless precision—Flegel’s bass a blunt instrument, Wallace’s percussion sharp enough to draw blood—before guitars from Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen tangle, shimmer, collapse. Cascading arpeggios, serrated synths, and serried rhythms collide in controlled chaos. Yet, amid the noise, there’s nostalgia—’80s and ’90s ghosts reanimated and reassembled, paying tribute to the bands that shaped them without succumbing to pastiche. Ill at Ease is classic Preoccupations: bristling, bruised, and barreling forward while staring squarely at the rearview, daring the wreckage to catch up.
Listen to Bastards below. Ill At Ease is out 9 May. Pre-order the album here and the vinyl version here via Born Losers Records.
In May, the band will bring their revered live shows across the country in support of the album, hitting cities across North America including Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City. The tour will be Preoccupation’s first tour since 2023, marking a triumphant return to the road. Tickets are on sale now. A full list of dates can be found below. Fans can purchase tickets here.
Tour Dates:
UK:
- 05/11/25 – Birmingham, UK – Hare & Hound
- 05/13/25 – London, UK – The Garage
- 05/14/25 – Bristol, UK – Strange Brew
- 05/16/25 – Manchester, UK – YES
- 05/15/25 – Brighton, UK – The Hope & Ruin
- 05/17/25 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
- 05/18/25 – Glasgow, UK – Room 2
NORTH AMERICA:
- 05/22/25 Montréal, QC – Bar Le Ritz PDB
- 05/23/25 Ottawa, ON – The 27 Club
- 05/24/25 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
- 05/27/25 Detroit, MI – Lager House
- 05/31/25 Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
- 06/01/25 Minneapolis, – MN 7th St Entry
- 06/04/25 Calgary, AB – Commonwealth
- 06/06/25 Vancouver, BC – Wise Hall
- 06/07/25 Seattle, WA – Madame Lou’s
- 06/08/25 Portland, OR – Polaris Hall
- 06/10/25 San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop
- 06/12/25 Los Angeles, CA – Lodge Room
- 06/13/25 San Diego, CA – Casbah
- 06/17/25 Austin, TX – Parish
- 06/18/25 Denton, TX – Rubber Gloves
- 06/20/25 Nashville, TN – The Blue Room-Third Man Records
- 06/21/25 Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade(Purgatory)
- 06/22/25 Raleigh, NC – Kings
- 06/24/25 Washington, DC – Songbyrd Record Cafe
- 06/25/25 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
- 06/27/25 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
- 06/29/25 Cambridge, MA – Middle East Upstairs
EUROPE:
- 09/14/25 Amsterdam, NL – Tolhuistuin
- 09/15/25 Lille, FR – L’Aeroneff
- 09/16/25 Le Havre, FR – Le Tetris
- 09/17/25 Paris, FR – Petit Bain
- 09/18/25 Antwerp, BE – TRIX
- 09/19/25 Nijmegen, NL -Doornroosje
- 09/21 Rotterdam, NL – Rotown
- 09/23/25 Cologne, DE – Blue Shell
- 09/24/25 Hamburg, DE – Hafenklang
- 09/25/25 Berlin, DE – Neue Zukunft
- 09/26 Prague, CZ – Palác Akropolis
- 09/27/25 Munich, DE – Strom
- 09/28/25 Vienna, AT – B72
- 09/30/25 Sofia, BG – Stroeja
- 10/01/25 – Athens, GR – AUX
- 10/02/25 Bucharest, ROM – Control Club
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