Mannequin Death Squad is a two-piece, indie, punk-rock band from Melbourne, Australia.

Their first EP was released in 2016, and since then they've released an album in 2022 and a single in 2023.

The band consists of Elena Velisnky (aka Elly Vex) & Daniel Cohn (aka DAN) who have been making music together for nearly a decade now. They debuted with a 5 track EP called “Eat Hate Regurgitate” that earned them a contract with UK based label, Integrity Records. A couple of singles followed (“Sick”, “KYMS” and “Van Gogh”) and the band toured Europe twice in 2017 and 2018.

A chance meeting with legendary Australian producer, Mark Opitz (Cold Chisel, Divinyls, INXS) led the band to record more pop punk orientated material (“Honey Punch” and “Blue”) that received praise from the independent press domestically and abroad. Australian Beat Magazine called “Blue” a “belter of a single” and British Get In Her Ears labelled their sound as “perfect”. “Honey Punch” was particularly popular with BBC 6 Music receiving multiple airplays from Steve Lamacq who compared them to Veruca Salt and The Melvins. Slaves were impressed with them too, the band opened a handful of shows for them alongside Estrons.

Released at the end of July, “Super Mental Psycho” is the first single and title track from Mannequin Death Squad’s upcoming debut album that will come out on 28th of September. The song stands exactly at 2 minutes and 58 seconds which should make a lot of radio DJ’s super happy as they love tracks that have less than three minutes. I’m not sure how the band did it, but they squeezed so much energy and passion into this one tune that could easily fill several albums. “Super Mental Psycho” is fast, loud, proud and has an unexpected tempo change at 1minute and 40 seconds mark which is probably my favourite part of the song.

Steve Lamacq is not wrong – Mannequin Death Squad sound like a younger sibling of Veruca Salt that learnt how to sing and play from the riot grrl movement bands that came out in late 80’s/early 90’s out of Olympia, Washington – The Go Team, Team Dresch, Sleater-Kinney or Hole. There is a definitive grunge flavour to their riffs and rhythmic section, to the tune of Green River “Rehab Doll” or early Screaming Trees (“Uncle Anaesthesia”). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.