Nick Ward has shared new single ‘Alien’, the third and final preview of the rising singer-songwriter’s forthcoming ‘Brand New You’ EP ahead of its arrival next month.
The track – written alongside Cub Sport‘s Tim Nelson and co-produced by Lucianblomkamp – opens with gentle acoustic melodies and ethereal synth pads, slowly building to a crescendo of big, distorted guitar riffs, propulsive drums and Ward shouting its refrain.
“The song is about queer masculinity and the binaries that hung over my head while I was in high school. I knew I didn’t fit in there, at the all-boys school, but I also didn’t feel completely seen when I went to most queer spaces with friends,” Ward explains.
“I felt pressure to fit into one of these moulds – what I perceived as Australian hetero-masculinity, versus a queer masculine stereotype. Little did I know that there was a whole world of beauty and complexity in between the two. Alien is the final, fluid stage that I find myself in now – embracing ambiguity, complexity and the ‘grey area’.
Watch the accompanying video for ‘Alien’ below:
‘Brand New You’, Ward’s second EP following last year’s ‘Everything I Wish I Told You’, is set to arrive on April 29. He’s already previewed it with two other singles – ‘Princess’ in November of last year, and E^ST collaboration ‘Funeral’ in January.
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“If my first project… explored internal discussions I have about my identity, then this new project poses the same questions but explores them through my relationships with other people, and the world around me,” Ward said of the forthcoming EP upon announcing it.
Earlier this month, Ward covered Blink-182‘s 1999 classic ‘Adam’s Song’ when appearing on triple j’s Like a Version segment.