Victim and Perpetrator

Victim and Perpetrator, out on 19 January 2026, is the first Atomic Rocket Seeders single since their self titled debut album of 30 October 2020, and it is the heaviest thing the Luxembourg trio have put their name to. The subject is children raised inside a war fought over an ideology they are too young to understand, which is a hard sell on a playlist and the band clearly knew it. What keeps it from being a lecture is the playing. Achal Murthy came to this band from the jazz conservatory and Berklee, and the bass moves like it, refusing to simply double the guitar. Thierry TAP Porcedda writes the way Incubus and Queens of the Stone Age taught a generation to write, changing the ground under a riff just as you settle into it, and Luca Daresta has the four hundred shows behind him to make the turns land. This is also a song with a long runway. They were already playing it fourth in the set opening for Bruce Dickinson at the Rockhal in June 2024, eighteen months before it was released. A second album is in progress. Discovered via Brian Heason (HBM Promotions / Music Plugger).