Last year, the London band Chubby And The Gang released Speed Kills, an excellent debut album that combined hardcore, street-punk, pub-rock and power-pop into one giddy, ferocious, fun-as-fuck whole. Initially released on the DIY indie Static Shock, the album took off outside punk circles, and the band signed to Partisan, which reissued Speed Kills with additional banger “Union Dues.” Today, the band has announced a new 7″ single that’ll be out next month, and they’ve shared its A-side, the euphoric ripper “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice.”

“Lightning Don’t Strike Twice” further expands the whole Chubby And The Gang sound. The intro has a bluesy lap-steel, giving the band a bit of Stonesy swagger, and the first line quotes Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried.” Mostly, though, “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice” is a full-on punk rock barrage, a fast roar about the realization that the world is set up for you to fail: “The pieces of paper that my school gave to me/ They said it meant nothing when I got to the factory/ Maybe baby, I was born to lose.” Below, check out director Jasper Cable-Alexander’s lo-res “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice” video, inspired by ’90s internet cafés.

In a press release Chubby And The Gang frontman Charlie Manning says:

I wrote this song about social inequality. Not mine but the people I saw around me. I feel like the whole premise of poverty is presented like this game in which if you play your cards right you can escape. In reality it’s more like playing a game of dice when they’re loaded against your favour. Constantly being struck by lightning and being told that it will never happen again. I remember witnessing someone’s telephone voice. Where they had to change their phone voice when conducting business or applying for jobs so they don’t come across as if they are from a lower class.

I wrote the last verse about that because it disgusted me that in a system supposedly created on meritocracy a human being has to change their identity to try and shake unemployment.
I’ve had very few jobs that required me to go for an interview. No one really cares who you are when you drive a minicab or lay out cables so I’m lucky in that sense. But many people aren’t.

The “Lightning Don’t Strike Twice” b/w “Life’s Lemons” 7″ is out 5/28 on Partisan.