photo by Toni Petrasck
Germany’s GAVIAL has completed work on their new LP, Thanks, I Hate It. The band will release the album through their allies at Exile On Mainstream in January, today unveiling its cover art, preorders, and more, alongside a premiere of the lead single/video, hosted by Everything Is Noise.
Nearly three years have passed since GAVIAL – formerly known as Tourette Boys – released their VOR LP with an updated lineup. Since then, the band – guitarist/vocalist Benjamin Butter, drummer Conrad Brod, bassist Paul Kollascheck, and guitarist Paul-Willy Stoyan – has been operating from the Berlin–Dresden–Leipzig triangle. While most songs on VOR were already written by the time Kollascheck joined the band, the focus afterward shifted: writing together as a four-piece and allowing the bass to become a more active force in shaping the music.
The results of this intense creative period can now be heard on GAVIAL’s new album, Thanks, I Hate It. Here, the band stretches its fingers in many different directions. The opener, “Control,” takes a minimalist approach, concentrating on fusing diverse soundscapes. With “Koru Mindset,” the band ventures into up-tempo territory for the first time, driven by beat and rhythm at its core. In contrast, “Grow” taps into a more classic blues feel, while “Pretender” and “Leviathan” dive into long, sprawling psychedelic jams. The track “Wandern” offers a reinterpretation of an older band song — a piece that further highlights how seamlessly the quartet now works together. The album closes with a cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.”
As with VOR, the new material is deeply shaped by the cultural, social, and political realities of our time. The album title itself captures the band’s pointed response: Thanks, I Hate It. A reaction to a world burning; societies fueled by hate; technologies drifting away from serving humanity; militarism rising once again; human rights ignored or unrealized; institutions riddled with corruption; and individuals claiming the wealth of all for themselves.
Recorded by GAVIAL in their band rehearsal space, Thanks, I Hate It was mixed by the band’s Benjamin Butter – who also created the cover art and videos for the record – and was mastered by Bernard Camillieri at Xekillton Studios, Malta.
With the video for the lead single and opening track, “Control,” Benjamin Butter writes, “The video for ‘Control’ starts in a classic way: the four musicians of the band GAVIAL are playing music in their rehearsal room. The video deliberately avoids a complex story and focuses on the stylistic design. Right at the beginning, the camera’s view is forced through night vision goggles, which from then on determine the stylistic direction with their striking green coloring. The focus shifts from a single perspective to a multitude of perspectives running in parallel, allowing the eye to jump from one focal point to another across the screen. The video thus turns the viewer into a restless observer who seems to be looking through the lenses of various surveillance cameras.
“With the resurgence of militarism in Europe, images documenting the killing on the battlefields of our planet from the perspective of drones have become increasingly common. From a seemingly safe distance, the horrors of war are transmitted almost live to thousands of screens.
“The video increasingly disrupts this aesthetic with visual artifacts. In the last third, ‘the broadcast’ is interrupted by a visually stunning collage that more and more transforms into an eye looking back at the viewer. The observer is now, in a sense, being ‘monitored’ in an allegory for the dwindling autonomy in our increasingly digitized society.
“In the end, ‘the broadcast’ is restored. However, all the people have turned into shadows and ghosts. What happened to the musicians in this iconoclasm remains unclear. The video ends with a sense of uncertainty that is so palpable when we look at our reality now: are you still observing or are you right in the middle of this video?”
The video makes its worldwide premiere via Everything Is Noise, who writes how the song, “…shows the band leaning into a bass driven groove with a steady drum beat, and guitars that flirt with the blues. Guitarist/vocalist Benjamin Butter delivers clear, melodious lyrics as the song progresses that echo my sentiments. ‘Control’ gradually builds in krautrock fashion revealing psych-rock crescendos with guitars swirling into the song’s gnarly climax. Butter also directed the video which shows glimpses of the band playing along with found footage behind night vision greens and blues during the build-up before bursting into a Technicolor visual collage that morphs into an eye watching the viewer back, a fitting and trippy visual accompaniment to ‘Control’ that ends with the band as ghostly shadows.”
Visit Everything Is Noise to watch GAVIAL’s mesmerizing “Control” video RIGHT HERE.
Thanks, I Hate It will be released on Exile On Mainstream on black vinyl bundled with a CD and digitally on January 23rd. Physical preorders are live at the label webshop HERE, digital preorders are up at Bandcamp HERE, and presaves can be found HERE.
Additional previews of the album and news will be posted over the weeks ahead as we head into the new year.
Thanks, I Hate It Track Listing:
1. Control
2. Koru Mindset
3. Pretender
4. Grow
5. Leviathan
6. Wandern
7. Wicked Game (Chris Isaak cover)
GAVIAL has booked two shows with Mriodom and labelmates Gaffa Ghandi to close out the year and is booking a release tour across Germany to take place in May. Additional live news will be posted shortly.
GAVIAL Live:
12/20/2205 Neue Zukunft – Berlin, DE w/ Gaffa Ghandi, Mriodom
12/21/2025 Chemiefabrik – Dresden, DE w/ Gaffa Ghandi, Mriodom
https://linktr.ee/gavialband
https://gavial.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/Gavialband
https://www.instagram.com/gavialband
https://www.mainstreamrecords.de
https://www.youtube.com/@exileonmainstream3639
https://www.instagram.com/exileonmainstream_official