Keeping the dinosaur theme going, South London’s ME REX are following up last year’s double EP Triceratops/Stegosaurus and this year’s ambitious debut album Megabear, made up of 52 short songs that can be played in any order, with a new EP called Pterodactyl. An updated full-band version of their 2018 EP of the same name, which was recorded back when ME REX was a solo project consisting solely of singer-songwriter Myles McCabe, Pterodactyl will be released early next year by the esteemed UK label Big Scary Monsters.

“Pterodactyl, while sticking to traditional song structures, very much picks up where the EPs left off,” explains McCabe. “It includes the first songs that I knew I wouldn’t be able to play live by myself. While I have done solo versions of ‘Skin, It Itches’ and ‘Never Graduate,’ I wanted to embrace parts of the full band set up that wouldn’t have been possible in a solo show. Pterodactyl is more complex technically and musically than any of the previous records, from the 10/8 time signature on ‘Never Graduate,’ to the tapping guitar on ‘Skin, It Itches,’ to the musical theatre inspired dynamics of ‘Giant Giant.’ The songs explore the need for change, through personal growth, decay, or the apocalypse.”

The first song we’re hearing from the new EP is the anthemic “Never Graduate,” which McCabe says “is about the fear felt while moving into a new phase of life. The feeling of unreadiness for inevitable change. Relationships that are shifting from simple circumstantial bonds to obligations of structured support. Hesitancy to move onto something new at the cost of the exclusion of all other possible futures.” Listen below.

Pterodactyl is out 2/4 via Big Scary Monsters.