If you’ve yet to cop a Matt Bourke gig, you’re missing a trick. I first caught them in January 2020 at their Tote Front Bar residency, and they wasted no time justifying their reputation as an unmissable live band. Bourke is a captivating performer, opening the set with an unaccompanied rendition of blues standard ‘John the Revelator’, before the Drunks kicked on with one of the tightest sets of blues-punk I’ve seen before or since, balancing barely-contained mayhem with outrageously skilled musicianship.

It’s been a while between drinks for the Drunks, with previous single ‘An Ode to My Future’ released over a year ago now; but ‘Stuck Here’ is worth the wait, and you can rest assured that in both cases they bring the raw energy of their live performance to the studio. While their debut was a slow-burner with bluesy verses exploding into chaotic choruses, the new track is all explosion, relentless from the onset of the abrasive guitar riff to the distorted rock ’n’ roll organ that closes out the track. 

Bourke’s signature snarl is the track’s focal point, not least in the growled mantra “I’m not stuck here” which forms the catchy chorus. It’s a surprisingly uplifting message for an artist whose bread and butter is dark, broody cynicism - written during a tough period of his life, Bourke calls it “a reminder that there are better days ahead, no matter how dark the path may seem at the time.”

For the rest of us, there’s at least two more better days ahead: ‘Stuck Here’ is released digitally on August 24th, before the group’s forthcoming debut EP drops sometime before the end of the year.