Chicago’s Pixel Grip drags the wires straight from the wall and wraps them around your ribcage with Percepticide: The Death of Reality, their third full-length set to drop June 12. With it comes Reason to Stay, a scorched hymn to betrayal and resilience, a beatdown dressed in latex and bruises.
The trio—Rita Lukea, Jonathon Freund, and Tyler Ommen—move as one charged entity, sparks flying where bodies meet circuits. Lukea’s voice doesn’t serenade; it lashes out, each word a shard slicing across basslines that buckle like beaten metal, synths scraping cold as concrete teeth. It hums with the anxious static of a television abandoned in a room where love is passed out on the floor.
No softness soothes these bruises, no tidy epiphanies whisper comfort; instead, boots stampede through emotional wreckage. Pixel Grip pose a relentless question—why give anything less than your all? Their answer vibrates from shattered mirrors and smoke-hazed club speakers, unyielding, defiant, and drenched in sweat and mascara.
Pixel Grip’s vision of resilience is raw-edged and furious, an endurance born not from hope but spite, staying just to witness adversaries crumble. It’s darkwave with bloodied knuckles, avant-pop gripped by the throat—a soundtrack for dancing in debris, teeth clenched in a defiant grimace. A spiteful love song burning like an ignited fuse.
“The focus track of the album embodies aggression. With a pounding, abrasive bassline and a chorus that’s shouted at you: “What’s the point of giving less than 100%? You pushed me to the limit what the fuck you expect?”
Watch Reason to Stay below:
Written over a three-year stretch between Los Angeles and Chicago, Percepticide: The Death of Reality traces the tremors of fragmentation and the slow, searing climb toward catharsis. It’s the sound of something breaking: personally, collectively…and something else clawing its way through the wreckage. Each member of Pixel Grip confronted their own collisions: betrayal, addiction, neglect, emotional collapse. The record rises from these ruins, a raw reckoning with perception, identity, connection, and what we dare to call reality. It moves like a body learning to walk again, bruised, burning, but forward. What’s left is a scorched sonic palette, equal parts demolition and rebirth.
“The album title itself is a portmanteau of “percipere” (to perceive) and “-cide” (to kill), signifying “the killing of perception,” says the band. “Percepticide: The Death of Reality is a visceral experience, a statement, and a call to redefine how we see the world. Percepticide is a cognitive distortion and a symptom of trauma – beliefs you hold to be true are shattered – as you question everyone and everything around you,” Lukea adds. “My dream is that expressing my rage can help someone else feel empowered and at the very least, less alone. You’re never stuck, and you’re never alone.”
Known for their seductive, avant-garde aesthetic and electrifying live performances, Pixel Grip has cultivated a cult following through relentless touring and an unapologetic exploration of themes rooted in desire, power, and liberation, amassing over 7M streams to date. In 2024, they toured as direct support for HEALTH and DEHD, followed by a sold-out North American headline run, including a standout performance at Chicago’s RIOT Fest.
Catch Pixel Grip live this autumn:
- Sep 27 White Oak Music Hall – Upstairs Houston, TX
- Oct 1 Ukie Club Philadelphia, PA
- Oct 3 DC9 Nightclub Washington, DC
- Oct 4 Baby’s All Right Brooklyn, NY
- Oct 21 Turf Club St. Paul, MN
- Oct 24 Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Denver, CO
- Oct 25 The State Room Salt Lake City, UT
- Oct 27 Valley Bar Phoenix, AZ
- Oct 29 Quartyard San Diego, CA
- Oct 31 El Rey Theatre Los Angeles (LA), CA
- Nov 1 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA
- Nov 6 Neumos Seattle, WA
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