Just last year, London New Rave outfit Fat Dog released their debut album ‘WOOF.’, a frenzied and rowdy half-hour of blasting apocalyptic dance-punk tunes that felt like a basement venue crumbling apart around the dancefloor.

Since then, the group have hit the road hard performing throughout the UK, barreling through an insane Glastonbury performance, and are gearing up to tear up US cities on their upcoming North American Tour during August and September.

In the midst of all these live performances, Fat Dog have finally released the studio version of fan-favourite cut ‘Pray To That’, with a wild and fun music video to go along with it. You can see fans rejoice over its release in the replies of an Instagram post teasing the track, so it was clear from the jump that this song was something special - and a long time coming.

Almost immediately, ‘Pray To That’ blasts the listener with those deep techno synths that the band has woven into their core sound through half a decade of live performances. Vocalist Joe Love crashes into the track as if he’s tearing through his own vocal chords in a delivery that sounds like a halfway point between IDLES frontman Joe Talbot's signature aggressive yells and Tom Waits’ haunting, gravelly vocalisations.

The track thumps away in the same party-at-the-end-of-the-world as their debut album. At a lean three-minutes, the band manages to get across so much of their core musical ethos in a more bite-sized form compared to lengthier previous singles like ‘King of the Slugs’ or ‘Running’, without giving up the same overwhelming power that those songs had. As Love imitates rapid gunfire during the post-chorus sections of the track, you still feel the insane dance energy present on all of their other material.

The music video for ‘Pray To That’ was directed by Dylan Coates and Travis Barton, who also directed the video for ‘I Am the King’ off ‘WOOF.’. Like that video, ‘Pray To That’ uses a handheld video style and references to religious imagery to produce a funny and slightly surreal vibe. The video stars Love as a preacher, flipping between a sermon in a near-empty church and a sleazy and drunken night out. The entire video is jittery and glitched out as if the VHS-style footage was found in a box in the attic, never meant to be found. It’s a great time, provided you don’t get motion sick watching it.

Ash Douglas

@ashdouglas_scot

Image: Frank Fieber

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