Retail Drugs Presents "Demon Town," New Single/Video From 2nd Album of 2025, 'Factory Reset,' Out December 5th via Angel Tapes/Fire Talk

album of 2025, Factory Reset, on December 5th via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk, and today unveils its new single, “Demon Town.” Channelling the provocative nature of Retail Drugs’ oft-discussed live performances, “Demon Town” is an immediately disarming fusion of blown-out electronics and avant-punk rock. “Demon Town” is a microcosm of Factory Reset’s experimental palette, which expands upon Brooks’ prior forays into guitar-forward tape-recorded compositions. Written in sequential order, Factory Reset stands as a testament to artistic experimentation, with each track written, engineered, and mixed by Brooks himself.

“Demon Town” is presented alongside a music video helmed by Brooks and longtime collaborators Josiah and David Martuscello. Of “Demon Town,” Brooks adds: “I blacked out when making ‘Demon Town.’ It started with the drum beat. I started screaming over it, distorting the master bus I had it all going into. It felt so strong I just kept all that distortion. It’s a feral track not really about anything. It’s cathartic making music that sounds like this. I let go of all expectations and let the voice within me make the thing.”

Watch Retail Drugs’ “Demon Town” Video

Where Retail Drugs first releases were centered around Brooks’ guitar and home tape recording set-up, Factory Reset — the band’s true sophomore LP, and third full-length release in the span of 2 years — engages alternative faculties. “I was so sick of writing music on the guitar,” Brooks says of the initial sessions that shaped Factory Reset’s explosive digital soundscape. As for the tape recording once central to his craft? “I ran out of cassette tapes.” The resulting Factory Reset challenges any pre-existing conceptions of Retail Drugs’ music, and simultaneously feels like a natural extension of Brooks’ creative process, which at its core has always been a reflection of his “hatred of genre, and the joy of music.” Brooks often describes his fast and intuitive writing habits as “leisurely” and “a pretty relaxing process,” providing an intriguing juxtaposition to Factory Reset’s urgent and alarming compositions.

For Factory Reset, Brooks tackled the project in sequential order, tracking improvisations straight to Ableton and honing in the compositions over 8 months across 2023 and 2024. Factory Reset’s album artwork, designed by John DeSousa in a batch of artwork options for Retail Drugs’ debut outing i love you so !, also served as a guiding light throughout Factory Reset’s creation, with Brooks’ inhabiting the perspective of the artwork’s central figure when writing and recording. “My two rules for this record were to write songs with the green guy in mind, and no guitar.” Across punk inflections, harsh electronics and noise, Factory Reset is a charged redirection. “I felt like the green mountain man wouldn’t fuck with shoegaze,” Brooks explains. Instead, Factory Reset deploys synth sounds and microphone feedback to create a caustic, confrontational statement.

Factory Reset eschews the norms of Retail Drugs’ prior writing and recording habits, but it’s in no way a declarative statement of where Brooks sees the project going next. “Retail Drugs is an outlet for me,” he says, continuing, “I suppose I’m just in a perpetual state of recording and making music for it.” For Factory Reset, creating that music largely involved abandoning all things tried and true, but Brooks confesses: “I did some acoustic guitar on ‘He Hears Us (Reprise)’ so I did break the rules. But fuck it rules are meant to be broken.”

Pre-order Factory Reset

Watch Retail Drugs’ “Anti-Lonely” Music Video

Retail Drugs Tour Dates

• Thu. Oct. 30 - Brooklyn, NY @ TV Eye
• Sat. Nov. 1 - Brooklyn, NY @ Unruly Collective
• Sat. Nov. 8 - Brooklyn, NY @ Trans Pecos
• Thu. Nov. 13 - Hamden, CT @ Best Video *
• Fri. Nov. 14 - Boston, MA @ Pasta Planet *
• Sat. Nov. 15 - New York, NY @ Berlin Under A *
• Sun. Nov. 16 - Philadelphia, PA @ Rug Club *
• Mon. Nov. 17 - Albany, NY @ Tummy Rub Records *
• Sat. Dec. 13 - New York, NY @ Alphaville [ALBUM RELEASE SHOW]
• Fri. Jan. 30, 2026 - Chicago IL @ Schubas [ANGEL TAPES SHOWCASE]

w/ University

* w/ Herr God

w/ ira glass, Jawdropped, Immaterialize, Starcharm