Label Obscura (Canada) / Warped Tracks (Scotland) – 5th August 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
A couple of months ago (I’m putting it down to the successive heatwaves that the time seems to have simply evaporated this year), Dragged Up stopped off in York (on their way to Newcastle from Middlesbrough) to squeeze in a special set opening day two of a mini-festival. During their performance, we got a preview of what was then touted as being a future single in the form of ‘Rapunzel’.
And now, the world gets to hear the studio version, in all its five-minute glory, complete with some bold sax. While the accompanying video (a two-minute cut), courtesy of the band’s own Eva Gnatiuk (guitar and vocals) features a succession of folks dropping classic and influential albums and books like they’re nothing (I was particularly pained to see a copy of the Red Star issue of Suicide’s first album getting tossed, even though the cover looked a bit battered, rather less fussed about a Faces album getting the treatment, and wait! That’s Stuart Lee emerging from behind an Earl Scruggs LP!)
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Where was I? Oh yes. The music. ‘Rapunzel’ is a garage, punky romp of a tune, and the sax lends it a very (early) Psychedelic Furs / X-Ray Spex vibe (Germ-Free Adolescents also appears in the video). It may reference hair washing, but it’s bursting with lyrical tangents, and couldn’t be much further from the songs from Disney’s Tangled (a movie I’ve seen far too many time, on account of having celebration a daughter who was exactly the right age for Frozen and stuff when it was all the rage). But this ‘Rapunzel’ keeps on springing surprises: the ‘Dark Entries’ section that featured live remains intact around the three minute mark, and if the video seems to say ‘meh’ to influence, the music itself says otherwise, feeling like a n effervescent celebration of those predecessors, rather than a trashing. Regardless, the result is an uptempo, exuberant, scuzzy blast that’s bursting with energy and attitude. And it’s great.
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Aural Aggravation 