“Derelict Crawl” by The House Flies is not interested in making darkness particularly glamorous. It is sweaty, repetitive, physical, and a little uncomfortable. Driven by a persistent post-punk rhythm and thick, abrasive guitars, the track builds its world slowly and then traps you inside it with four words: “We don’t belong.”
The first single from the band’s upcoming second album, Lions and Ore, the track introduces its heavier side without giving away everything that comes later. The rhythm feels almost mechanical, while the guitars gradually fill the space around it, turning repetition into tension rather than predictability.
The lyrics add another layer of unease. “All dialtone / One two now gone / We don’t belong / Leather stains the bone” moves through fragmented images of leather, summer heat, bodies, and things slipping through cracks. Nothing quite forms a straightforward narrative, and that ambiguity works in the song’s favor. Instead, the fragments create a strange, tactile landscape of decay and displacement.
The repeated “We don’t belong” eventually stops sounding like a conventional chorus and starts feeling like a mantra. It is simple, but the repetition gives it weight, especially against the song’s increasingly claustrophobic instrumentation.
There are recognizable echoes of Joy Division, Interpol, and Protomartyr in its dark rhythms and emotional restraint, but The House Flies bring in enough noise rock, goth, shoegaze, and alternative-rock texture to keep the track from feeling like post-punk nostalgia. The quieter passages also give the heavier sections room to hit harder.
As an introduction to Lions and Ore, “Derelict Crawl” by The House Flies works precisely because it does not explain everything. It gives us grit, repetition, heat, and alienation, and leaves us wanting to know what lies underneath!
