PWR BTTM is a self-described queer punk band consisting of Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce from Annandale On Hudson, New York. The duo met at Bard College and bonded over a shared desire to enliven DIY culture with features from performance and drag artistry. PWR BTTM became their mode of exploration amongst things like gender, identity and queerness. As you might expect from such a project, their music is at once fun and meaningful, a renouncement of doubts or self-consciousness and an invitation for other to join them and do the same.
Fresh from putting out a split release with Jawbreaker Reunion earlier this year they are back with their debut full length, Ugly Cherries. A fair number of tracks have been unveiled in the previous weeks. ‘Dairy Queen‘ details plans for happiness/freedom/world domination to be set in motion once the narrator has finished their shower, while the title track confronts queerness head on with a clear-eyed defiance. The pick of the bunch is ‘West Texas’, where Hopkins and Bruce alternate verses to describe a variety of attempted escapes, all of which circle back to where they started – horribly, irrevocably in love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtquRuiGABc&feature=youtu.be
The latest track to be unveiled is ‘1994’, a throw back to the feel-good power-anthems of the early nineties. Once again however, the band mix this sense of fun with serious and personal lyrics, allowing for a song at once danceable and cryable:
“Haven’t seen your face since 1994
It feels like nothing
These days it pays to be so strange
And I’m like nothing”
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Ugly Cherries is to be released on the 18th September. You can pre-order it now via Father/Daughter Records and Miscreant Records. 
The band are also heading out on tour for those of you in the US. See the full dates below (* indicates with Mitski, # are with Mitski and Palehound):
09/18 @ Silent Barn – Brooklyn, NY (Record release w/ Charly Bliss, Fern Mayo, Kississippi)
10/14 @ Aurora – Providence, RI (w/ S featuring Jenn Ghetto of Carissa’s Weird)
10/31 @ Shea Stadium – Brooklyn, NY (w/ Joanna Gruesome, Aye Nako, King of Cats)
11/10 @ PhilaMOCA – Philadelphia, PA *
11/11 @ DC9 – Washington, DC *
11/12 @ Southern Cafe – Charlottesville, VA #
11/13 @ Pinhook – Durham, NC #
11/14 @ Caledonia Lounge – Athens, GA #
11/16 @ The High Watt – Nashville, TN #
11/17 @ Bishop Bar – Bloomington, IN #
11/18 @ The Frequency – Madison, WI #
11/19 @ 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN #
11/20 @ Beat Kitchen – Chicago, IL #
11/21 @ Rumba Cafe – Columbus, OH #
11/23 @ Smiling Buddha – Toronto, ON #
11/24 @ Casa Del Popolo – Montreal, QC #
11/25 @ BSP Lounge – Kingston, NY #