The six-piece post-punk outfit San Jose is tearing up the rulebook with their upcoming single ‘The Bastards’.

Building a massive reputation for live sets that blur the boundaries between audience and artist, these are theatrical gigs complete with crucified bear costumes and staged apocalypses. After conquering iconic local venues like King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut and Stereo, they are capturing that energy on record.

Produced by Chris McCrory (Walt Disco, Catholic Action, Joy Hotel, Flat Party) and mastered by Felix Davis, ‘The Bastards’ is a volatile track that interrogates power, sovereignty and identity against a backdrop of crumbling democracy. It’s a work that moves fluidly between post-punk abrasion, repetition and cabaret-like theatricality.

Described by the band as “a ballad about sovereignty,” the track captures the unease of living under systems that feel increasingly hostile and immovable, through stark and visceral, lyricism pairing political disillusionment with moments of fragile beauty, as chants and swelling instrumentation give way to uneasy quiet.

Speaking about the single, the band say: “The Bastards is a ballad about sovereignty. It’s hard to write a song about anything else in today’s climate. Everyday some creeping dark cloud over democracy grows, seemingly stronger and more opaque. We’ve been trying to capture that cloud and distill that feeling for a while, and with The Bastards we feel we’ve come close. Being Scottish, it seems being politically discontent is part of our very being, our genealogy even. This feeling is building amongst us, and you can tangibly feel it – we hope that The Bastards can be a light that shines upon that. As always, recording with Chris McCrory is a pleasure and a privilege. To have someone like Chris who knows when to keep us in line and when to let us run wild is a huge asset.”