The Washington, DC power-poppers Bad Moves are a great example of their city’s historically rich DIY scene at work, and they’re back with some new shit. Bad Moves released their last album Untenable in 2020. Last year, guitarist David Combs released some very cool collaborative singles from his Dim Wizard project. Now, Bad Moves are ready to drop another album on us.

Over the past few months, Bad Moves have dropped the singles “New Year’s Reprieve” and “Let Rats Inherit The Earth.” Both of those tracks appear on the band’s upcoming LP Wearing Out The Refrain. David Combs co-produced the LP with Hop Along/Algernon Cadwallader member Joe Reinhart, and it’s full of catchy songs about hopelessness.

One such song is the new single “Hallelujah,” and I’m delighted to report that it’s not a Leonard Cohen cover. Instead, “Hallelujah” is a fired-up rager about all the new laws aimed at repressing LGBTQ+ people: “To express oneself, now expressly forbidden/ That’s a spiritual hell, that’s a new prohibition/ And they’ll boil you down to reproductive function/ When they see you as a vessel and not as a person!” Below, check out “Hallelujah” and the Wearing Out The Refrain tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “A Drowning Confession
02 “Let The Rats Inherit The Earth”
03 “Eviction Party”
04 “Hallelujah”
05 “I Know I Know”
06 “Outta My Head”
07 “New Year’s Reprieve”
08 “Sorry That I’m Not Better”
09 “The Undertow”
10 “A Lapse In The Emptiness”
11 “Days Don’t Quit”

Wearing Out The Refrain is out 9/13 on Don Giovanni.