New Math - They Walk Among You [2024 Remastered & Expanded]
The Rochester, NY band’s 1981 debut EP has been newly remastered & is now expanded to include six bonus tracks: three studio outtakes & three tracks recorded live at Rochester’s Scorgies in 1983. The band cut its teeth in the 80s at Scorgies; the venue named “one of the best music clubs in the nation” by Rolling Stone.
By the time the 1980s struck, New Math was way out there. After cementing an underground rock scene at the now-extinct club Scorgies in the ruins of Rochester New York, the band became more captivated with the occult, channeling more doom-laden post-punk than what was highlighted on their past power pop singles, “Die Trying” and “The Restless Kind.” In 1981, New Math released their debut EP They Walk Among You on 415 Records, a pioneering San Francisco-based label that saw releases from The Nuns, Romeo Void, and Roky Erickson And The Aliens. Uniquely enough, New Math had no ties to the Bay Area, but thanks to their producer and friend Howard Thompson, who had worked with 415 label head Howie Klein, they were given their first real record deal. Working within the contours of horror punk romanticism through the EP’s gothy anthemic title track and the sinister onslaught of “Invocation,” New Math sounded more appropriate to bill alongside The Psychedelic Furs or The Gun Club than say Eddie and the Hot Rods or local contemporaries the Cliches. In Bill Kopp’s Hozac-released book, Disturbing The Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave, frontman Kevin Patrick discussed the stylistic change and said, “I think we just were like lots of kids. You just tried to mimic your favorite band at the time, or your favorite sort of moment in music.” One of the unforgettable highlights of this era was one that the band’s right-hand man Duane Sherwood recalled. “They did a show in Washington D.C., shortly after the assassination attempt on President Reagan,” Sherwood says. “During the drum and bass breakdown in the middle of the song, they mixed in an audio tape of the first news reports from the shooting scene, complete with the sirens of police mayhem. Jaws dropped as the locals immediately recognized what they were hearing.”
Following up the band’s long-awaited compilation of early singles, Die Trying & Other Hot Sounds (1979-1983), Propeller Sound Recordings is bringing the debut EP back from the grave. As an expanded reissue, the newly remastered EP will include the lost cuts “Dead of Night,” “Two Tongues,” “Second Language,” and a few live covers like their primitive take on Willie Alexander’s “Hit Her Wid De Axe.” These eleven original songs and live covers together offer up poetic tales of madness and metamorphosis, demonstrating New Math at the height of their powers. Before you try to dig further, here’s a track-by-track guide with each member of the band that makes up the striking precision of They Walk Among You.