Last year, the acerbic and angular Chicago power trio Stuck released their album Freak Frequency. Earlier this year, they followed the full-length with two new songs, “Deep Tunnel” and “AITA?” Now, they’re honoring the first anniversary of Freak Frequency by dropping two previously unreleased tracks from that LP’s sessions.

“Moth Joke,” one of the new Stuck tracks coming out today, was inspired by a famous Late Night With Conan O’Brien bit where Norm McDonald told a joke about a moth that went on forever. “Shift,” the other new track, was once intended as the Freak Frequency closing track, and it addresses similar themes about the apocalyptic stasis that’s gripped society. Both songs churn and twinkle with authority. Here’s how Stuck describe them:

“Moth Joke,” a reference to Norm MacDonald’s seemingly aimless late night bit, tackles the dread of feeling a specific type of hopelessness as a result of living in a system that postures as a bastion of representative democracy while actively ignoring the will of the people it claims to represent. The sentiment is made worse when paired with a social media cycle where ceaseless wall-to-wall coverage is both a net positive when it comes to the dissemination of information but also makes the bleak content being covered feel unavoidable at any given moment.

“Shift” was going to be the last song on the record and was meant to thematically wrap up the idea of a freak frequency oscillating between two faces of the same party that unite in representing the immediate needs of the neoliberal business class while also teasing out the larger sentiment behind Joe Biden’s “nothing will fundamentally change” being ridden into what seems like the end of history.

It’s nice to see that political life in the USA has changed so deeply since these songs were written in 2018 to the point that these issues are no longer relevant for the general public. We will be donating the proceeds from this release to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund who are actively addressing urgent humanitarian needs and supporting long-term recovery efforts in Gaza.

Listen to both tracks below.

Freak Frequency is out now on Born Yesterday. Check out Stuck’s upcoming live shows here.