New York-based fashion designer/author/musician Keanan Duffty and his longtime friend and musical collaborator Fabio Fabbri have once again blended their love of punk and rock with some help from David Bowie alums Ava Cherry and Mike Garson (David Bowie’s pianist), along with Percy Jones (bassist for Kate Bush, Suzanne Vega, Brian Eno), Dom Beken (Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, The Orb), Christian Dryden (The Ritualists), and co-write credits from Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols) and Earl Slick (David Bowie, John Lennon) for SLINKY VAGABOND’s third record, THE ETERNAL RETURN, out today, January 14th, 2025 (also available on vinyl and CD).
“The Eternal Return’s lyrics concern mortality, morality, abstraction, and also some straightforward storytelling,” says Duffty. “The album title is in reference to the philosophical idea that time repeats itself in an infinite cycle, with the same events occurring in the same way over and over again,” he adds cheekily. “I don’t necessarily subscribe to this,” Duffty continues. “Nietzsche believed that without a higher meaning, humanity would eventually become concerned only with small pleasures. That, I do believe. So we must be creative to fulfill our higher selves. That is the message of our record.”
The follow-up to 2021’s King Boy Vandals (the title is an anagram for the band name Slinky Vagabond), The Eternal Return allows Duffty and Fabbri the space for their creativity to flourish and simultaneously takes notes from a classic, yet psychedelic soundscape.
The 2-sided 11-track record is the culmination of three years of creative work, but Duffty says, “it really represents a lifetime of creative output,” adding “Fabio and I do this for the love of the music. We wear our influences ‘on our sleeves’ and are proud and privileged to make music with some of our heroes.” The first single that came from The Eternal Return is “Strange World,” which according to Fabbri, is “almost like being in a Quentin Tarantino film… you are in the Twilight Zone, where different music styles can be combined to create a sound that is a mix between a psychedelic song and Latin rock.” The track is anchored by a noir-ish guitar that recalls Ennio Morricone’s iconic Spaghetti Western scores, with its hallucinogenic and surreal warpiness that sinks deep and distorts perceptions. “That used to describe a typical night for me in the 1990s,” laughs Duffty. “The song is about the otherness feeling that we sometimes get. ‘Is this all real or is it a vivid dream?’”
The opening track of The Eternal Return, “Lady Bump Discoteque (featuring Ava Cherry),” begins with a sweltering tremolo guitar, and Keanan’s vocals are smooth and hypnotic as Ava Cherry harmonizes with him. It’s a gorgeous entrance into the universe Slinky Vagabond is drawing you towards. It’s romantic and heart warming as they sing, “Oh won’t you let me in / I want to touch your skin / I want to show you ‘round the town tonight,” but the song itself is quite psychedelic and otherworldly, like a love song between two aliens. Another fantastic song on the record, “Icarus Falls,” begins synthy and twinkly as it descends into the band’s unique, yet classic-rock sound. Continuing with themes of the cosmos, mythology, love, magic, they illuminate the surreality of human emotions. The track ascends into harmonizing vocals and guitars, like a star shower in outer space. Duffty explains, “My high school art teacher told me, ‘You are not the most talented, but you are the most ambitious,’ and since I get sunburned very easily, the legend of Icarus is one I hold dear… I did fall from grace spectacularly, on many occasions, but have no regrets. Hence the lyrics! Fabio came up with a rocking tune on this track!”