Who the f**k are... Highly Suspect?

Brooklyn-based alt.rock trio Highly Suspect went up against David Fucking Bowie to battle for the best rock song of the year at this year’s Grammy Awards, and while they might have lost, they lost to David Fucking Bowie, which is a fucking achievement in its own right.

They’re racking up a colossal fuckton of plays on streaming sites the world over and their YouTube viewing figures are well into the eight-digits. But who the fuck are they, what the fuck do they want and why the fuck should we care?

Here’s why…

Who the fuck are they?

Highly Suspect started off life as a fucking covers band, where they spent their time fucking up songs by Sublime and other such ska punk luminaries. But don’t let that put you off – they left that shit behind them when they relocated from Cape Cod to Brooklyn in the late noughties, thank fuck.

The band is a coupla twin brothers – yup, there’s two of the fuckers – Rich and Ryan Steyer on bass and drums respectively, while Johnny Stevens shreds and sings upfront. They released a bunch of EPs between 2009 and 2013 – one of which was co-produced by Joe Duplantier of TeamRock favourites Gojira – before unleashing two fucking awesome albums in the last two years, and have joined Deftones, Halestorm and Scott Weiland on tour, the lucky fuckers.

Johnny Stevens having a fucking lovely time at a festival (Image credit: Getty Images)

What the fuck do they sound like?

It’s yer average angsty-as-fuck fuzzy neo-grunge meets epic-as-fuck anthemic stadium rock, topped up a bit of deep-as-fuck melodrama in the lyrics.

Imagine Silverchair getting a reach-around from Queens Of The Stone Age while Biffy Clyro, spit-roast Twenty One Pilots and–

Actually, don’t. Too far. Just listen to fucking Lydia, below. You’ll get the gist.

What’s their best fucking song?

Lydia – the single which won them their first fucking Grammy nomination back in 2016 – has been streamed almost 30 million fucking times on Spotify, and had 15 million views on YouTube, which is only roughly equivalent to the population of fucking Argentina. Here at TeamRock, we prefer the down ‘n’ dirty vibes of alt.rock stomper Bloodfeather, plus the cool-as-fuck badass cowgirl strolling around in its accompanying video.

What’s their best fucking video, then?

Along with the aforementioned Bloodfeather video, the My Name Is Human video also has a distinct fucking Westworld vibe going on. Well, Westworld if it was set in a fucking underground carpark. See if you can fucking work out what’s going on, smart arse.

(Or, just use the video as an opportunity to chat about your mum or try and track down your lost fucking connections, like their own fans do, the daft fuckers…)

What do people say about the fuckers?

They fucking love them, obviously, and with good reason. Metacritic gives their latest album The Boy Who Died Wolf an average score of 67% – which is pretty fucking good, considering – while users were even more generous at 7.⁶⁄₁₀. Alternative Press piled on the praise with an entirely decent ⁷⁄₁₀ review while Clash were warm if a little more reserved. Mojo, quelle fucking surprise, watched as it flew right over their heads. Pfft.