Since late last year, the Mary Timony-led Ex Hex has given fans an excellent single, a charming food-fight music video, and a 7-inch containing a totally satisfying eight minutes of crunchy, rah-rah power-pop. Now the group, which also features Laura Harris (The Aquarium, Benjy Ferree) and Betsy Wright (Chain and the Gang), has an Oct. 7 release date for Rips, its upcoming debut album on Merge Records, and a new song.
The steamrolling and infectious “Don’t Wanna Lose” is the first track from Rips, and yeah, it rips. First with some head-jarring, Cramps-ish reverb, then a collar-rattling verse, then the fist-shaking, catch-up-with-me-boy chorus: “I don’t wanna lose your love/it’s in my head, it’s just a question of/if you’re gonna stop messing around/you’d better hurry up, don’t let me down.”
The band plays with Hospitality and Soccer Team at Rock & Roll Hotel on July 24. Listen to “Don’t Wanna Lose”: