Glass Animals' new track Your Love (Déjà Vu) proves they aren't slowing down

One of last year's most long-awaited (and down-right great) returns came from beloved festival favourites Glass Animals, who after a couple of years away from the limelight - largely due to their drummer Joe Seaward sustaining brain head injuries after a cycling accident back in mid-2018 - made a warm welcome with the Denzel Curry-assisted Tokyo Drifting. It was a left turn into a new direction from the English four-piece, with a heavy emphasis on crashing bass and searing synth that formed a trap-rap-esque underlay for their frontman Dave Bayley, who despite the new production, felt in his comfort zone as he swerves amongst punchy kicks and Denzel Curry's unexpected verse.

Today, they're proving it wasn't a one-off fluke, and that their comeback is something that's going to hold a little bit of weight going into the new year. Their new track Your Love (Déjà Vu) is one that comes with all the bells and whistles long-time Glass Animals fans would be well-familiar with at this point; their sudden switch-up into darker, hip-hop-influenced sound seemingly something that's gonna be touched with their future work - it's visible on Your Love, but obviously much less so than on Tokyo Drifting - without going all-the-way into it every single time.

This time around, Glass Animals' newfound dive into hip-hop feels a little more like a subtle underlay than the single's central, dominating sound. It's a nod to the heavyweight pioneers of hip-hop production - Timbaland, The Neptunes - that elevates Glass Animals' distinct sound; their trademark, almost incomparable ooze of confidence seemingly a touch richer thanks to its punchy rhythmic patterns and crispness (both characteristic of those two hip-hop producers just mentioned. 

"This song is about being addicted to chaos," says Dave Bayley on the track, who outside of Glass Animals, has a repertoire of hip-hop and R&B musicians whose influence is slowly creeping into the Glass Animals canon: 6lack, Khalid and Joey Bada$$ among them. "About doing or allowing something self-destructive because on some level you get off on the sadness that comes of it. It’s about wanting to float around and exist inside of that feeling because it has always been familiar to you. It’s something that a lot of people know from growing up in a tense household… so it can feel right to create that dynamic, even if you don't realise you're doing it."

It's something you can expect to see more of in the year ahead, with Your Love arriving with news that Glass Animals' forthcoming record - their first since 2016's sound-defining How To Be A Human Being - will arrive later this year. In the meantime, dive into Your Love below, and catch them at Splendour In The Grass later this year:

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