Stonks joins the EXAG family and drops today new single 'dashcam/crash'

straight from Brussels vibrant emerging scene

Just over a year after the release of their first EP Class Craic, Stonks is already a very different band. There have been changes in the lineup, with Antoine Raskinet now taking over bass duties, but more importantly, the past year has led each member to “ask themselves questions they never had to ask before.”

In response, Stonks decided to exorcise their anxieties through an extended creative immersion, with the help of their long-time collaborator, Jacopo Donelli, aka painful2remember, for the five tracks of this new EP. The sound remains post-punk noise, but the influence of the shoegaze scene beautifully illustrates the evolution of the Brussels-based band, providing a saturated backdrop where introspection justifies the explosion.

At an average age of 22, the "leaderless" band has matured and gained considerable distance from their hybrid identity as neo-urbanites "between forest and pavement." The carefree spirit of Class Craic is now behind them; Stonks fully embraces its loss of lightness and darkens the atmosphere. Confronted, albeit reluctantly, with the end of innocence, the quartet maintains the tension and gains depth, always well supported by the soaring brass of indispensable trumpeter Mathis Jeanne, who, depending on the mood, either plays a distorted death knell or evokes cinematic melancholy.

Like many of their illustrious predecessors, Stonks has dived into the eternal well of existential doubt, and with this new EP, they venture to highlight contrasts, embrace ambivalence, and orchestrate their reflections with unsettling maturity.