Happy Halloween! Here’s a perfect anthem for your next nocturnal excursion: Not Under Your Spell by New York’s Frenchy and the Punk. The track bursts to life with a jolt—the kind that shakes you awake from a long sleep of compliance. The beat lands like a boot on a floorboard, sharp and deliberate, as Scott Helland’s guitar sears through the rhythm—lean, tense, and propulsive. Behind it, a synth line flickers like a fuse, ticking with the precision of a metronome set to rebellion.
Samantha Stephenson commands the microphone like a general addressing her legion of survivors. Her voice rises with the authority of conviction, each phrase a rallying cry against inertia. “Keep going if you’re going through hell,” she urges, and it sounds less like advice than a challenge hurled at the abyss. Her tone carries the urgency of lived experience, the cadence of someone who has learned to alchemize exhaustion into fire.
Scott Helland’s guitar answers with precision and pulse. A veteran of Western Massachusetts’ early hardcore punk scene, having played alongside J Mascis and Lou Barlow in Deep Wound, he brings a sense of economy to every riff. His playing isn’t ornamental; it’s architectural, building the scaffolding upon which Stephenson’s stunning vocal command ascends. The percussion hits with industrial resolve, the bassline anchoring everything in relentless motion.
What makes Not Under Your Spell magnetic is its synthesis of opposites: the mechanical and the human, the disciplined and the feral. Its structure is tight, but its emotion wild. The production feels alive with tension; every downbeat another small victory against defeat. It recalls the spirit of Siouxsie and The Banshees or The Damned.
The accompanying DIY video, shot and edited by the pair, captures a fevered montage of life on the road: clubs, highways, faces, fleeting moments, all dissolving into one restless reel of memory. It’s the visual echo of the song’s heartbeat: constant motion, perpetual renewal.
Watch the video for “Not Under Your Spell” below:
Formed in New York City in 1998, Frenchy and the Punk are the enduring partnership of French-born dancer and vocalist Samantha Stephenson and American guitarist Scott Helland. Together, they’ve forged an art-driven existence that blends punk, performance, and perseverance. From coffeehouses to festivals, they’ve carried their defiant energy across continents, building a devoted following on authenticity alone.
Their latest release, and first with Distortion Productions, captures everything that defines them. Not Under Your Spell is a commandment in 4/4 time: dance through the fire, sing through the fatigue, and keep moving until the spell breaks.
The duo has forged their own distinct path, touring the US and Europe with their artful two-person powerhouse of sound. To date, they’ve performed with Dead Can Dance’s Peter Ulrich and Dresden Dolls’ Brian Viglione, Thomas Dolby, Dinosaur Jr., The World Inferno Friendship Society, Rasputina, Cruxshadows, Aurelio Voltaire and Faun.
Listen to Not Under Your Spell below and order the single here.
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