Oakland post-punk rockers Street Eaters will release their brand new studio album Opaque on September 5 via Dirt Cult Records – seven tracks that thrum with both rage and redemption. Since their last album in 2017, not only did they weather a global pandemic along with the rest of us, frontwoman Megan March also had a child. While becoming a mother was, as she puts it, “an incredible joy and opportunity to rewire emotional pathways and deep wounds,” childbirth was both a traumatizing and transformational experience. Ironically born on the Fourth of July, her baby immediately entered a world steeped in bureaucracy, as the hospital was so understaffed that Megan was neglected until the last moment, forced to endure an emergency C-section.
New single “Spectres” is a haunting incantation whose doomy atmosphere belies its sweet core. Reflecting on healthy parenthood, Megan processes her past while striving to imbue love and caring direction for her son while also understanding that she has to empower him to be his own person. Her own mother was violently homophobic and eventually ejected Megan and her teenage sister — both queer — from their home. “I’m working to create a much better emotional landscape for my son to grow in — to find both understanding and healing from the breakage of cycles of abuse and isolation,” she says.
Watch / Share: “Spectres” video
On Opaque co-founders Megan March (drummer/vocalist) and John No (bass/vocals) are joined by guitarist Joan Toledo since 2019, a refugee from transphobic family and government in Florida, former editor of Maximum Rocknroll Magazine and radical union organizer at City Lights Books in San Francisco. The new collection attempts to stitch up the bloody wounds of their past — a meditation on birth and death, excavated trauma, and trying to find steadfast kin in a world that’s becoming more and more splintered and cruel. It is almost like a body in the process of healing: messy, broken, beautiful, and nevertheless alive.
“Opaque is a record that gets deep into the stark and beautiful reality of growth and transition from trauma and loss,” says March. “What does it mean to wake up one day and realize you are living the way you have always demanded to live — yet with all those jagged piles of emotional, physical, and social/political baggage still slicing through the veil?” Still, the album isn’t just confrontational — it’s complicated. A grasping toward identity, understanding, a place in the world in the process of being curated. “It’s a transition into finding peace with the world — a resonant connection with community and chosen family, getting beyond a lot of the pain and hurt,” No says. “We’re trying to suture up wounds at this point and create something that’s healthy.”
The band have toured extensively with Screaming Females and Jawbreaker among others, and now fans will have more chances to experience their fierce live show with a slew of dates that kicks off later this month!
Street Eaters tour dates – TICKETS
8/27: San Francisco, CA in Kerouac Alley
w/ Channel 3, 6pm (free!)
9/11: Silver Spring, MD @ Quarry House
w/ Sensor Ghost, Vampyres From Africa
9/12: Philadelphia, PA @ God’s Automatic Body
w/ HIDE, Pinkwash
9/13: Brooklyn, NY @ Hart Bar
w/ Discreet Charms, Weegee
9/15: San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
w/ Unwound
