Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Hallelujah Picassos continue to impress with their renewed activity and renaissance in recent years. Always a band to ignore genre limitations, they’ve explored hardcore, reggae, dub, indie rock, rockabilly and electronic styles – always with intriguing results.

If you’re new to the band, make sure you head back and check out the Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland band’s brilliant 18 song retrospective compilation Rewind The Hateman album from 2011.

They’ve got a brand new single out today, their second for 2023, and after 35 years in the game in they’re still pushing at the fabric of sonic possibilities of rhythm-based music.

‘Tax The Rich‘, like ‘Jelly Inna Jar’ from earlier this year, finds them digging into an electronic, dub-streaked framework. Polyrhythmic beats spark and propel the song onwards with a swirling and driving momentum. The dubbed-out electronica sound places them alongside the likes of Leftfield, African Headcharge, Bill Laswell and Pitch Black in the way the kinetic energy of the music brilliantly cocoons and elevates Roland Rorschach’s chants and invocations.

You can catch the band playing at Tone Fest 2023 at Whammy Bar in Auckland on September 23rd.