On their recent 7″ for Convulse Records, the Denver band Public Opinion played a Hives-adjacent, Spiritual Cramp-esque form of garage-punk. Their new single for the same label sounds way different. “Bug,” a collaboration with Pittsburgh power-pop band Rex Tycoon, is a grunge-pop track in the vein of last year’s Dazy/Militarie Gun team-up “Pressure Cooker“: huge power chords, barked-out lyrics, uptempo energy despite its midtempo pace.

Kevin Hart of Public Opinion says:

We met and played a couple shows with Rex Tycoon on tour this past April and since then I’d known that I wanted to do a song or a record with them. I originally did a voice notes demo of some guitar parts for another song that I immediately sent to Austin with a text saying, “This isn’t very PO, but it could possibly work for Rex.” That song wound up being left on the cutting room floor, but we were both pretty into the idea of working together. Fast forward to this summer, and I’d started writing this other, softer song that I thought we could make sound great together. Sent another voice memo out, the Rex boys were into it, and we planned on making a session work. We had a tour coming up with a Pittsburgh date, leaving us the perfect chance to record the track all together. PO drove overnight after our Brooklyn show, got up in the early afternoon and tracked it with Keith from Rex. I personally couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

And Austin Reeseman of Rex Tycoon:

I first came across Public Opinion on the internet a few years ago because we were both using Zach Hobbs for artwork and I thought the art he posted for them was awesome. I really liked the sound of what they were doing, a spin on a style of rock music that I wasn’t really hearing anywhere else at the moment. It was really refreshing to me. I knew instantly I wanted to connect with these guys so I reached out and we became friendly through Instagram. We ended up playing a few shows with them on tour and getting along great. Not only did the music gel well together but our personalities did too. One time when me and Kev were talking about goals and motivations he said to me, ‘It’s like looking in a mirror,” which I couldn’t agree with more. Eventually he sent me a demo saying he was writing a song that sounded more Rex than PO and asked if I was down to collaborate. Instantly I said yes. We didn’t end up using that initial song but instead we tracked a second song he wrote that he felt the same way about. Our bass player Keith engineered the session one day when they were in town before we played a show together in Pittsburgh in July. He mixed and mastered it a week or so later. The whole thing came together really quickly and I’m really proud of how it turned out.

Listen to “Bug” below.

“Bug” is out now on Convulse.