Australian Duo Mannequin Death Squad Will Be ‘Dancing Between Genres’ at India Debut This Week

If you’re looking for a good example of how much havoc a two-member band can wreak on stage, Mannequin Death Squad embody it. The Melbourne rock duo comprising multi-instrumentalists Elly Vex and Dan have been taking their 2022 album SUPER MENTAL PSYCHO on the road for a while now and already have a second album ready for release.

Their travels take them to Europe and then to Ziro Festival of Music this week, where they will make their India debut. One of the ways they’ve been described is “thrash-pop,” which certainly invites intrigue. The duo, over an email interview, describe their sound as “thrashy riffs, catchy vocal melodies and fun beats. Dancing between genres, whilst not falling in one for too long.”

Dan and Elly describe their India debut as “quite exciting” and “very special.” They add, “We haven’t heard much, except that everybody is very passionate about music, so we are expecting a great show!”

They’re not changing up much whether they’re under a big stage or in a packed club. The duo say about their Ziro performance, “We try and keep the energy levels up as much as possible like a club show, and it just depends on what the crowd is like. Sometimes we may need to engage with the crowd differently according to the environment, whether it be crowd participation in songs or just getting a good mosh pit going.”

With that kind of intent, Mannequin Death Squad back it up with songs like “Monsters,” their recent single which came out in July this year. Reminiscent of pop-punk popularized by the likes of Paramore, Mannequin Death Squad take things up a notch with more screaming, anthemic choruses that twist and turn in the ways one least expects. There are more singles coming out and the second album at the start of 2024 via their own label. Elly and Dan describe the sound as unforced, unhurried and their next material to be in a “heavy alt rock vein.” They add, “But it’s still quite diverse and we had a lot of fun recording it and road-testing it through Europe. The album after that also has no limits, so it could be anything!”

For Mannequin Death Squad, the Ziro appearance also marks another highlight in what they describe as a “big year” for spending a total of three months of 2023 away on tour. “We are looking forward to some family time and working on the next chapter,” the duo says.