Joyce Manor are prepping for the release of their new album ‘I Used To Go To This Bar’ at the end of the month with a fresh new taster.

‘I Know Where Mark Chen Lives’ is as quintessential as it comes for the band. Outrageously catchy hooks, tight chords and overflowing with crowdsurf-ready energy. Clocking in at just under two minutes, it’s the sort of blink-and-miss-it brilliance that the band have made their name on, but putting their exuberance and experience at the forefront in pursuit of making sure that it is stuck in your head long after the fuzz has faded.

Lyrically, though, it’s densely layered, as vocalist Barry Johnson explains:

“Mark Chen was a singer and songwriter for the bands Summer Vacation and Winter Break, which didn’t get quite as popular as they deserved to. I just love Mark’s songwriting and voice.

Lyrically, the song was inspired by Chase and I hanging out, drinking and smoking weed and laughing about stuff, and we were talking about how when weed clubs first started, they’d give you a free dab and the budtender would do a dab with you. Dabs are insanely gnarly. I was cracking myself up imagining some 19-year-old girl that just did her third dab of the hour before getting robbed at gunpoint, because they’d always get robbed as cash businesses.

That’s the imagery of the song: Those early days when weed was still not super fully legal. It was like the Wild West, a little bit. And yeah, that just gave me a chuckle because it’s really dark and brutal.”

‘I Used To Go To This Bar’ will be released on January 30 via Epitaph, and was produced by label owner and Bad Religion vocalist Brett Gurewitz.

It will also feature ‘Well, Whatever It Was’, which sounds a lot like this: