Spiral XP have announced their debut album I Wish I Was A Rat, will drop on October 18th via Danger Collective Records. Today, the seattle band has shared Lead single “Luna.” “This song is an ode to the moon,” Keyes explains of lead single “Luna,” “I like that it can also be read as a love song of sorts, I wanted to capture the feeling of being totally awestruck and captivated.” Watch the video below, which he says is “an homage to the movie The Seventh Seal, set in a late capitalist context.”

On the band’s debut LP, principal songwriter Max Keyes explores meaning, truth, and value under capitalism. Feeling unmoored by the ambient crush of a culture that prioritizes labor over pleasure, and data points over artistic expression, Keyes withdrew, finding solace in a new passion for songwriting. The resulting 12-song collection navigates late-twenties existential ennui and emerges triumphant, bending feedback drenched guitars into euphoric new shapes, imbued with the timeless stamp of Pacific Northwest melancholy.

After the release of a number of EP’s, Keyes was joined by Lena Farr-Morrissey (bass, vocals), Jordan Mang (guitar), Kyle McCollum (guitar), and Daniel Byington (drums) to expand his vision on I Wish I Was A Rat, inviting them to augment the songs as they saw fit. “They ended up taking on a life of their own,” he explains, “that’s a little scary but also thrilling to me.” Keyes and the group enlisted producer JooJoo Ashworth (Corridor, SASAMI, Automatic) and decamped to The Unknown, the studio Phil Elverum helped construct in an abandoned church.

In early 2020, just before the world ground to a halt, Max Keyes abandoned a short-lived move to Philadelphia and returned home to Seattle. The false start sparked a sort of existential crisis, and he quickly moved north to Bellingham where he’d grown up, hoping the sense of home might provide some grounding. An accomplished drummer with the acclaimed noise rock band Versing, Keyes began hammering out his own songs during this quieter time, approaching the guitar for the first time with serious intention. “It was good to have a couple of years just writing and becoming more confident,” he reflects. Spiral XP launched as a solo project in 2021 with the lo-fi and promising Drop Me In EP, quickly followed by successive EP’s It’s Been A While (2023) and TVXP (2024), a collaboration with the emerging Seattle band TV Star.

Spiral XP
I Wish I Was A Rat
Tracklist
Danger Collective Records

01 Luna
02 Horse Money
03 Window Room
04 Sinner
05 Cruel World
06 Wailing
07 Tonight
08 Awake
09 Winter Snow
10 Bright Eyes
11 Starve Me
12 Not Afraid

Pre-order I Wish I Was A Rat HERE