We started out the year with Shamir’s excellence, it’s only right to ring in the last few weeks of it singing more praises. The Philly-based multidisciplinary indie rock artist has released lead single ‘Cisgender’ off of upcoming eighth studio album ‘Heterosexuality’ - out February 11, 2022. The track is produced by Hollow Comet, of the band Strange Ranger, and follows earlier drop ‘Gay Agenda’. ‘Cisgender’ teems with piercing lyrics and vocals, speaking truth about a most human experience - vibrating with self-professed queer rage about ‘not passing, just existing on this god forsaken land’. It’s a first taste of what’s sure to be a path-breaking, unflinching new release - and here I was still recovering from last year’s ‘Shamir’.

From the press release: ‘Instead of a pure gender confirmation, he chooses a radical refusal of any sort of categorization at all: “I think this album is me finally acknowledging my trauma. Everyone knows I’ve been through so much shit and I kind of just rammed through, without really acknowledging the actual trauma that I do feel on almost a daily basis.”’

Shamir’s ‘Cisgender’ is out now across platforms here.