Vancouver alt-pop outfit Fake Shark have released their bittersweet new single “Paranoid” today. The track is reminiscent of 90’s rock, carried by summery, fuzzy instrumentals and moody vocals. Listen to the song now below.
On the release, lead singer Kevin Maher shares, “Paranoid is a song about having conflict with somebody who knows you well enough to pick you apart perfectly. There’s no point in making something up to win an argument because they already know it’s not true. It’s the frustration of being close to somebody.”
For their aptly titled most recent LP Time for the Future, Fake Shark took a page from the Paul’s Boutique playbook and got heavy into sampling, borrowing bits and pieces from existing records to create something uniquely novel and incredibly compelling. In fact, Fake Shark’s recent releases successfully straddle several balances beyond fresh and familiar. Thanks to the clever lyricism laced throughout the monster hooks, it’s universally appealing and individually relatable all at once. Immediately sticky but teeming with substance. Dance-inducing but still cerebral. With virtually no limits on the instrumentation or stylistic intricacies Fake Shark can incorporate to make something stunning, the constant at the core of their output is the idiosyncratic, simply inescapable vocal hooks. In the vein of other boundary-bending pop innovators like Prince, No Doubt, Solange, or Blood Orange, no two Fake Shark albums are alike, yet all are instantly recognizable as their own.