B-Side Guys

In their latest single “Demons,” Michael Vickers and The Bad Thing construct a psychological haunted house that invites listeners to confront their own darkness through a disorienting yet mesmerizing musical journey. The track marks their first release as a four-piece, with new lead guitarist Adam Krzeczkowski adding bluesy texture to the Midlands outfit’s already potent chemistry.

Recorded at Sheffield’s 2Fly Studios with producer Alan Smyth (whose early work with Arctic Monkeys and Pulp lends credibility to the band’s indie pedigree), “Demons” achieves something rare: genuine structural surprise without sacrificing cohesion. The track’s “blisteringly angry fairground waltz” opening sets an appropriately carnivalesque tone for lyrics that plunge fearlessly into the subconscious. When Vickers confesses “When I go to sleep I see these things/Faceless foes, clowns and crows,” the nightmarish imagery gains power from its musical setting—a twisted sonic funhouse that mirrors the mind’s labyrinthine darkness.

What’s most striking about “Demons” is how it transforms seemingly incompatible elements into emotional continuity. The transition from carnival waltz to “melodic guitar pop” to “menacing noise rock crescendo” mirrors the unpredictable logic of dreams themselves. This structural adventurousness feels less like experimental posturing than emotional necessity—the only honest way to capture the fractured psychological landscape the lyrics explore.

Vickers’ unflinching lyrical approach is particularly notable for its willingness to acknowledge taboo thoughts. The opening lines “Sometimes I day dream about you dying/And I can’t lie that makes me feel happy” establish a confessional tone that rejects sanitized expressions of inner turmoil. This rawness continues through surreal dream sequences where the narrator finds himself “flying round the room while all my other motor skills have gone,” capturing the helplessness that accompanies both nightmares and waking anxiety.

The repeated questioning of “Why don’t I feel the way I feel?/With the weightless boulders on my shoulders now” creates the track’s emotional center—a paradoxical state where psychological burdens feel simultaneously crushing and insubstantial. This contradiction becomes the song’s driving tension, ultimately exploding into the cacophonous finale where Vickers catalogs nightmarish visions with increasing urgency as “demons chasing” becomes both refrain and reality.

“Demons” ultimately succeeds because it refuses easy catharsis or resolution. The Bad Thing understands that genuine emotional authenticity requires embracing contradiction and discomfort—creating something “strangely beautiful” precisely because it refuses to sand down its jagged edges. In doing so, they’ve produced a track that transforms private torment into communal exorcism, inviting listeners into the twisted world they’ve created and suggesting that our collective darkness might be less isolating than we fear.