Butthole Surfers Release New Song “IMBUYA”…“’Imbuya’ was conceived and produced much like a fart after eating beans,” says guitarist Paul Leary of BUTTHOLE SURFERS about the textured, psych-sludge transgressive single, which is released today. “Imbuya” is the second single from their upcoming album AFTER THE ASTRONAUT, with a release date of June 26, 2026, via Sunset Blvd.
Never fitting into neat genre boxes, Butthole Surfers’ remarkable ability of mixing psych rock with industrial, punk, and abstract guitar noodlings becomes quite apparent with “Imbuya.” Keeping pace with a rhythmic drum shuffle programming (courtesy of King Coffey), the track showcases Leary’s adept guitar prowess while vocalist Gibby Haynes delivers lyrics worthy of an evangelical sermon. “It’s a truly meaningless song. Kinda our thing,” Leary adds.
“Imbuya” follows the soaring surrealism of initial surf-punk single “Jet Fighter” which Earmilk quite accurately described as “exactly what you would imagine, and exactly what you never thought you could feel again. Ironic, absurd, melodic, and of course, entirely relevant.”
A mythical “lost’ record, After The Astronaut was originally scheduled to come out on April 7, 1998 but shelved by Capitol Records for being too abrasive and uncommercial. Expecting a pop follow-up to their #1 Modern Rock Hit “Pepper,” the album was pulled off the release schedule and tossed unceremoniously in the closet. Its tracks were later reconfigured and reworked as the album Weird Revolution in 2001, which the band wasn’t very happy with. “Hollywood Records bought the album but wanted to make changes to it which was an uncomfortable experience for us,” Leary notes. Instead of allowing that recording to embody its original intent, the band opted to revisit the music as it was designed. “Now we have the right to release the original recording the way we intended it to be with its original title, After The Astronaut.”
The 12-track album is a fascinatingly oblique tour-de-fart. Filled with acid-drenched, industrial-inflected soundscapes peppered with Haynes’ ofttimes stream-of-consciousness vocals, After The Astronaut is exactly what you’d expect from Butthole Surfers but nothing you’d predict. Kicking off with the trippy psychedelic cacophony of “Weird Revolution” into the grimy, proto-industrial synth-grunge of “Intelligent Guy” toward the mesmerizing and hypnotic “Yentel”, it’s an album of textures and abrasion but with solid musicianship to keep it anchored. Sinuous and serpentine, it encircles the melodies in orchestrated musical anarchy, which Stereogum characterized them appropriately as “the biggest freaks on the American underground rock circuit.”
AFTER THE ASTRONAUT
Track Listing
Side A
01 – Weird Revolution
02 – Intelligent Guy
03 – Jet Fighter
04 – Mexico
05 – Imbuya
06 – Venus
Side B
07 – The Last Astronaut
08 – Yentel
09 – Junkie Jenny in Gaytown
10- They Came In
11- I Don’t Have a Problem
12 – Turkey and Dressing
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source xsrock.com ’
