Heel formed in 2020: peak-pandemic, rising geopolitical chaos. Looking to solve frenzied creative restlessness as the world sprinted toward societal regression, the trio of old friends and bandmates, began making the hook-heavy noise-rock doused in fuzz that is Heel. 

Lyrically, the band exists in a shadow-universe of our society: mind control, a dying planet, cults of personality. The tunes are built on Andrew Fialka’s (Murfressboro, TN) pummeling drums, a bass foundation thick as a brick wall from Rob Bratney (Chicago, IL), and Nick Friedman’s (St. Louis, MO) mind-melting guitar parts that balance raw aggression with off-kilter melody. 

Inspired as much by ’60s heavy psych rock and the stoner rock of the ’90s as they are sci-fi and horror films, HEEL lives in the center of a Queens of the Stone Age / Frankie and the Witch Fingers / Ty Segall-at-his-heaviest Venn diagram. 

It’s a coded broadcast for the fed-up that’s loud enough to fry your speakers — and maybe your mind.