Christian Ortiz and Jordan Serrano of Rochester emo band calicuzns (fka California Cousins) now also have another band called Dead Pets, and they’re releasing a horror-themed debut EP called Such Sights To Show You on Halloween via Acrobat Unstable. They’re officially releasing lead single “Slow Blinking” on Friday the 13th, but it gets an early premiere in this post, and it finds Christian and Jordan leaning more into catchy, scrappy pop punk compared to the more abrasive, intricate music they’ve been making in calicuzns lately.
Jordan says, “Christian and I have been playing music together for like 10 years at this point and he’s one of the best drummers and all-around talented musicians I know, so it just made sense to keep jamming together. With our other band, calicuzns, we generally stick to heavier and more complicated songwriting so with Dead Pets it’s nice to get a chance to keep the songwriting simple, focus on catchy melodies, and let the drums, bass, and leads do the heavy lifting. Our friend Quincy is an all around nasty musician so we asked him to play bass (he said yes!). And a star was born.”
The video for “Slow Blinking” is a collection of grainy clips that play into that horror theme, and you can check it out right here:
