Jamie Hall was absentmindedly watching a movie when he first heard the phrase "the perfume of decay." It was nothing more than isolated bit of dialogue, but the line resonated with the Tigercub frontman. It sounded dark, heavy, and gothic. It sounded like his band. "There was a nighttime aesthetic to it, and something that reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe and the Victorian era," he remembers. "It seemed to sum up the bittersweet nature of growing up. Thematically and musically, that's where Tigercub was headed." With The Perfume of Decay — Tigercub's third record of nocturnal, hard-hitting rock, as well as their first release for Loosegroove Records — Hall draws the curtains shut and embraces a moody, melancholic sound that's every bit as cinematic as Hollywood itself. It's an album about counterpoint and opposites, stacked with songs that contrast overdriven guitars with whispered vocals, tight grooves with shoegazing swells of noise, sonic experimentation with sharp songwriting. For band that's always trafficked in drama and dynamics, The Perfume of Decay marks Tigercub's strongest release to date. "The Perfume of Decay is set at night," Hall explains. "It was written at night, I recorded all the vocals at night, and it is at night when my thoughts race and uneasiness pours through me like running water. Under the glimmer of moonlight, my apprehension ebbs and flows like the tide and it doesn't stop until the morning. Perfume is a diary of my emotional journey from dusk to dawn, an anxiety-fueled voyage through the storm. Lyrically, at points, it is almost a stream of consciousness. I sat up late and wrote the words down as they flashed before my eyes." "I use my songwriting as a form of catharsis — a tool to examine my anxiety and insecurity about growing older and how those emotions seem to lead me towards turmoil," he adds. "I pour those feelings into my lyrics and only then can I move on from them. " A seven-foot frontman, radio host, and music historian, Hall is literally larger than life. Tigercub's music has always sounded similarly colossal, from the band's 2016 debut, Abstract Figures in the Dark, to 2021's As Blue as Indigo. Those records represented two different sides of the Brighton-based band, hinting at diverse influences like Led Zeppelin, Slipknot, Chopin, and Sonic Youth. For Tigercub's third album, Jamie and his two bandmates — drummer James Allix and bassist James Wheelwright — set out to occupy the space between those extremes.
