Get ready to go totally nuts for Joanna Gruesome’s brand new album Peanut Butter, due to be scooped out to the world on 11 May via Fortuna POP! (UK), Slumberland (US) and Turnstile. Chock-full of chunky guitars and spread thickly with amazing pop melodies, the record is a further experiment in balance. Salty and sweet, crunchy and creamy, the album incorporates elements of jangle pop, British hardcore punk, atonal music, screaming, drone organs, and the marriage of radical politics with peanut butter spread. Listen to the taster track “Last Year”, a song about about experiencing personal tragedy in unlikely environments.

Like their debut, the new album was recorded by MJ from Hookworms, with the aim of making the melodies poppier and to include more aggressive screaming in order to heighten both aspects of the sound. As songwriter Owen Williams explains: “We tried to make it shorter, more economical and attempted to pack as many hooks and screams in as quickly possible in order to avoid short changing the consumer or wasting her/his time. Lyrically it’s more obtuse and surreal but also attempts to mock trad masculine rock themes whenever things do get more lucid. But then sometimes musically we embrace them by doing stupid guitar solos. Sometimes it’s narrative based but a fair amount of it is obtuse, word collage type stuff about radical politics, fancying people and peanut butter. The first record was more about violence and revenge fantasy, whereas this one is more about peanut butter.”

The band all originally met on a wine tasting holiday. Their terrific debut album Weird Sister took the world by storm when it was released in September 2013, going on to win last year’s Welsh Music Prize. Fantastic press support saw glowing press reviews across the board with particular love from Pitchfork and from NME, including a spot on the front cover as part of their Rule Britannia issue, as well as live coverage from The Guardian, Observer and The Independent. At radio their singles have scored a remarkable four out of four on the BBC 6Music playlist and the band have played sessions for both Lauren Laverne on 6Music and for Huw Stephens on Radio One.