Nicotine Dolls share Gimme Sympathy before self-titled second album arrives
Nicotine Dolls have released Gimme Sympathy, a bruising new single taken from their forthcoming self-titled second album, due out this Friday 23 October via BMG.
Driven by distorted guitars, hard-hitting rhythms and Sam Cieri’s characteristically forceful vocal, Gimme Sympathy finds the New York band leaning into a noisier, more confrontational strain of rock. The track arrives alongside a new music video, with the album set to follow later this week.
Speaking about the song’s subject, Cieri said: “It’s about the people in your life who only know how to take, with no accountability or desire to return the favour. They are the leeches we let suck us dry, disguised as important relationships. Then, we wrap it all in chaos.”
A fresh start for the band
The self-titled record was co-produced by Cieri and Marti Frederiksen, whose previous work includes records with Aerosmith and Ozzy Osbourne. It marks a deliberate reset for the band, who shelved an earlier attempt at a follow-up to debut album An Attempt at Romantic after reshaping their line-up and reconnecting with the rawer sound they wanted to pursue.
Cieri, guitarist John Newsome and drummer Abel Tabares recorded the new album in Nashville. Earlier releases Enemy and Here to California, co-written with Desmond Child, have already offered a taste of the record’s bigger guitars and more direct songwriting.
“We were having so much fun playing with John, and it reminded me of the way rock & roll made me feel as a teenager,” Cieri said. “I realised that for a long time I’d been making the music I thought other people wanted to hear, instead of making music that I truly love.”
Twelve songs of desire, regret and survival
Across 12 tracks, the album is said to move between the defiant To the Wolves, the groove-led frustration of Little Games and the high-voltage release of Gimme Sympathy. Cieri has described the finished record as the closest the group have come to realising their intended identity.
“I’d always wanted to make a record like the one we ended up with, but never had the right band to pull it off,” he said. “Somehow, everything came together and it felt like magic. That’s why it’s self-titled. To me, it’s the first real NICOTINE DOLLS record.”
