Photo Credit: Jason Thrasher

Vibrant and volatile Athens-based psych-rock supergroup Dark Meat burned brightly and toured hard for several years in the late aughts before its players scattered and the band called it quits. But recently, a majority of members found themselves back in Athens for the wedding of two of their own, and decided to lay down one last jam.

Says frontman Jim McHugh:

So we were all in town for Charlie and Heather's wedding and hanging at Orange Twin and seeing Mind Brains and Space Trucks and generally kicking around town with everyone again. The old energies started to come back; we got a wild hair to record the last Dark Meat tune that never made it to tape back in the day. We did it in one night at Tim [Schreiber]'s house, live to tape with minimal overdubs. As with most great things in Athens, it happened organically and spontaneously.

Perfectly, ironically, I wrote the song about how burned out I was with touring and trying to make it work, and, generally, how much it sucked to be in Dark Meat at that point. The "Thems That Die" refer to the folks who'd left the band by then, who I'd see around town, free and willy nilly and getting on with things. At least that what I think its about: I never really finished the words, and discovered via Sloan Simpson's live recording that most of the lyrics were just a roiling mash of gibberish. I rewrote them, through the smeared prism of memory, in Tim's bedroom at the 11th hour; now they are an aglomerated semi-cogent glob of gibberish! 

Thankfully, a good handful of "them that died" came over to Tim's that night, and we had a blast making this happen. I'm pumped on the results, too. Have at it!

Stream the result, the raucous "Thems That Die (Will Be the Lucky Ones)," below: