Paper Tigers Photo credit: Bjarki Guðmundsson
Anyone who says there are no second acts in American lives has never wielded a guitar or sang into a microphone. It’s likely that person has also never performed live at music festivals like Boston Calling and In Between Days, been nominated multiple times in the Boston Music Awards and New England Music Awards, or helped shape the sound of an indie music scene at both the club and underground levels.
That’s what Paper Tigers achieved in a few short years just after the pandemic, sending a jolt to the sonic senses with a maximum-volume approach to alternative and indie rock through a string of releases that positioned the band as Boston’s next great breakout. But shortly after the release of debut album Charmer nearly three years ago, the band went quiet, and a once promising future for a scene stalwart suddenly fell uncertain.
Now with a streamlined lineup and renewed focus, Paper Tigers are making up for lost time with frenzied new album East Coaster, a chaotic, noisy, and anthemically aggressive collection of bangers that The Big Takeover is exclusively premiering today ahead of its official release this Wednesday.
In true Paper Tigers fashion, East Coaster – titled for the type of temperament those from or living in this part of the country tend to possess – is a mechanical fireball of a record, exploring lyrical themes of love and loss, anti-social behavior, and anti-corporate American sentiment through a relentless, experimental sound that’s both claustrophobic and compassionate.
A taste of what’s to come arrived last month through the record’s first single, a dizzying trip of dystopian alternative rock called “Go Out,” featuring guest vocals from Olivia Beatrice Martinez of acclaimed indie-pop group Don’t Tell Iris.
“It’s good to be back,” the band admits. “This album is our best and certainly most mature record yet. We’re well rested and ready to melt faces with our new record. It’s been a minute since Paper Tigers were ‘active’ in any visible sense, but the truth is we never really stopped. We’ve just been writing, quietly, in the background this entire time.”
Three years in between releases these days can feel like an eternity, but sometimes life needs a moment to sort some things out. Now a studio project with no plans to perform live, Paper Tigers consists of the core songwriting duo of Boston’s Michael Medlock (vocals and lyrics) and Iceland’s Bjarki Guðmundsson (guitar and programming).
Contributions on East Coaster include bass on “Go Out” by founding member Matthew Hughes, and Guðmundsson’s fellow countryman Emil Þ. Emilsson, “easily the most dynamic drummer we’ve ever worked with,” they add, who provides the beat across each of the album’s 11 songs. The album was co-produced and co-engineered by Bjarki Gudmundsson and Cody Von Lehmden, also of the aforementioned Don’t Tell Iris.
Adds Paper Tigers,
“We’re stoked for this new phase of the band. Although we’re not performing live anymore, we’re happy to just write, record and release music and other content. We exist solely on the interwebs now. The biggest change for us was geography. Bjarki moved from Boston to Iceland in the summer of 2024. That spring and summer, we went through a really productive stretch of writing. Those few weeks really were the seed of everything on this record.”
Lead single “Go Out” takes Paper Tigers’ classic aural chaos and wraps it tightly around arena rock choruses and propulsive energy, where a rollercoaster assault of guitars and revved-up beats intertwine. Like on many of the songs of East Coaster, a wave of sound overwhelms as a cascade of infectious melody permeates this instant contender for Song of the Summer. Like most of the record, it’s unhinged with a calculated fury.
“‘Go Out’ is essentially from the perspective of an anti-social individual in a relationship with a social butterfly,” the band reveals. “Basically, the older we get the more we enjoy staying home and we’re tired of apologizing for it.”
Album opener “This is Going to be My Year” explodes out of the gate after a slow-burn intro, blossoming into the type of kaleidoscopic sound the band was initially known for. Tracks like “Keep a Light on Just For Me” and “My Pistola” swerve into industrial rock territory, with a kinetic energy and restless spirit.
The gritty “A Company Man” centers around Medlock’s experience getting laid off from his longtime corporate job; the impatient “Tempest in a T-Shirt” details the lyricist’s past transgressions and relationships when he wore a younger man’s clothes; and the soaring “The Pope of Allston-Brighton” calls back the band’s former stomping grounds – where only Medlock remains in the creative Boston neighborhood.
With its coarse and confrontational sound, Medlock’s lyrics eagerly explore the human condition and what it means to be alive and aware in 2026. We’re all feeling sad and numb, we’re all experiencing paranoia and discomfort, and Medlock’s words align the moods of what we’re all feeling with the sort of pent-up aggression that’s aching to explode out of us every day.
Anchoring beats with distraction and distortion, East Coaster is a combustible record with soft edges, where a pulverizing snarl and dystopian mindset are firmly rooted in the distrust we have with everything around us.
This is not easy listening, because life in 2026 is not easy living. But with past accolades and attention firmly behind them, existing in a past life that, viewed from afar, feels like a long-ago first act, Paper Tigers launch into a new era with a refined sound and renewed focus. Those songs that were first assembled over the long three-year break are finally ready to be consumed by the public, and crafting an assault on the senses that’s a true reflection of our daily chaos is all too fitting for life in 2026.
And they know this new mood might not be for everyone, even if we’re all experiencing the same emotions.
Concludes Paper Tigers,
“For those who enjoyed our last album Charmer… you’ll either love or hate East Coaster. No in-between. It’s a slightly more experimental record and a bit of a departure from anything we’ve done before. We like to describe it somewhat akin to the relationship between Weezer’s Blue album and Pinkerton. Charmer was our polished, stadium rock, radio-friendly record and East Coaster is us with the handcuffs off, just being ourselves. It’s a little more ‘out there’ with less worry around it being successful, whatever that means, in today’s world. It’s our favorite body of work yet.”
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