There’s something about the kind of spastic and frenetic energy that radiates from the punchiest math-rock riffs that helps make the genre one of the easiest to get lost in. The energy just washes over you and you can’t help but move until your drenched in your own sweat, grinning from ear to ear. California Cousins is one of the few bands in the genre that manages to capture all of that energy without coming across as cheesy or gimmicky; the push and pull of each riff bounces off the walls of your skull and the contrast they manage to create with the slick vocal melodies is the kind of thing that musicians spend entires careers trying to construct.

This comes to a head on the stellar “Extendo Weekend.” One of the first songs to come from their new Distant Relatives EP out early next month on Chatterbot Records and Deep Sea Records, it takes everything that makes California Cousins great and bottles it up into one pristine package. Each of the sporadic riffs feels more chaotic than the last, creating the kind of tension that carries you straight into bliss. The music video is a green-screened bit of comic relief that makes light of the songs tangible energy.

When asked about the track, California Cousins said: “Extendo Weekend is about realizing your role in the failure of a relationship. More specifically, this song addresses the toxic notion that your partner (or any autonomous being, for that matter) needs you to ‘save’ them and recognizing that the love you give should come from a place of caring rather than some misogynistic ‘duty.'”

The music video for “Extendo Weekend” can be seen above. Distant Relatives is out on August 17th via Chatterbot Records and Deep Sea Records and can be pre-ordered here and here.