Now that’s a story.
They’re called Howlin’ Jaws, they’re from Paris, and for years they’ve been establishing themselves as one of the most exciting bands in the new wave of European psychedelic rock. Their new single, “Maximum Speed,” is a journey through boogie, garage, vocoder, and Beach Boys-style harmonies. On October 2, they’ll release *Living The Dream*, and in November we’ll be able to see them in Spain.
There’s something wonderful about discovering a band before everyone else starts talking about it.
Write down the name.
You listen to a song.
Then another one.
And twenty minutes later, you find yourself wondering:
How is it possible that I didn’t know these guys?
That just happened to us with Howlin’ Jaws.
There are three.
They’re from Paris.
They’ve known each other since they were children.
And if your record collection includes King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Tame Impala, The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Beach Boys, or The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, you should probably keep reading.
Their new song is called:
“Maximum Speed.”
And the title says it all.
First, listen to “Maximum Speed”
The song is 3 minutes and 49 seconds long and has just been released through Bellevue Music. The official credits list Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm and György Barocsai as producers and the three members of Howlin’ Jaws as songwriters.
But the credits don’t explain what happens when you press play.
A guitar.
Boogie.
Psychedelia.
A chorus processed through a vocoder.
Vocal harmonies that sound like they came straight out of a particularly trippy Beach Boys session.
And then everything blows up.
The song picks up speed until it builds to a breakdown that seems tailor-made to make a concert crowd go wild.
There is a garage.
There’s pop music.
There’s psychedelia.
And there’s something about that sense of controlled danger that makes King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard a pretty logical point of reference. The description of the new album itself links “Maximum Speed” to the Australian band’s wildest excursions.
But then we found out how the song came to be.
And we like it even more.
“Maximum Speed” exists because of a computer error
There are albums that are obsessed with eliminating mistakes.
Howlin’ Jaws just turned one into a song.
“Maximum Speed” started out as a jam session.
So far, nothing too strange.
But during the recording, someone made a mistake while copying and pasting on the computer.
The second line lost its structure.
The song changed.
And instead of pressing Ctrl+Z to put everything back where it belonged, the band decided to listen to what that accident had just created.
It worked.
The error remained.
It’s a small anecdote, but it says a lot about Howlin’ Jaws.
Because his music seems to exist precisely in that space where a seemingly old-fashioned idea can suddenly take a different turn and become something contemporary.
Who the heck are Howlin’ Jaws?
That’s the interesting question.
Howlin’ Jaws are:
Djivan Abkarian, vocals and bass.
Lucas Humbert, guitar.
Baptiste Leon, drums.
Three childhood friends from Paris.
And its history doesn’t exactly begin with psychedelia.
It begins with…
rockabilly.
Toward the end of the last decade, they began to attract attention with *Burning House*, an EP released in 2018 and built around much more classic roots.
But they did something smart.
They didn’t stay there.
Then they traveled to the studio where The White Stripes recorded *Elephant*
The next step took Howlin’ Jaws to London.
Specifically, Toe Rag Studios.
For garage rock fans, the name has a certain sacred quality to it.
It is the analog studio of Liam Watson, the producer and engineer associated with one of the seminal rock albums of the early 2000s:
“Elephant” by The White Stripes.
Howlin’ Jaws worked there with Watson to record *Strange Effect*, released in 2021.
And they captured it on tape.
Suddenly, that rockabilly-influenced band started opening windows.
Garage.
Pop.
Psychedelia.
Melodies.
Textures.
Two years later, they worked with Watson again.
The result was Half Asleep Half Awake.
And the windows grew even larger.
From The White Stripes to Eastern psychedelia
*Half Asleep Half Awake*, released in 2023, confirmed that Howlin’ Jaws wasn’t particularly interested in becoming a revival band.
The second album expanded their musical universe into more psychedelic territory and even incorporated Eastern influences. (Radical Production)
That is perhaps the aspect of them that interests us the most.
Howlin’ Jaws knows exactly where he comes from.
But he doesn’t seem interested in living there.
And that brings us to their third album.
Living The Dream —and this time they went to Sweden
For their new album, they decided to change the setting.
Goodbye, London.
Hello, Gothenburg.
And here’s another key name:
Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm.
Jerneholm is the bassist for The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and has worked as a producer with artists such as Foals, The Hives, José González, and Junip.
It doesn’t seem like a random choice.
Because while Liam Watson was perfect for capturing the analog, garage-rock sound of Howlin’ Jaws, Jerneholm could help them do something different:
enlarge the landscape.
The result is called Living The Dream.
It will be released on October 2, 2026.
It will be their third album.
And it contains eleven songs. (Fnac)
And this is where things get really interesting
Because when you look into the album, elements you didn’t expect start to emerge.
The album appears on “Terminal Buzz.”
“Sunset Laundromat” has a country feel to it.
“Maximum Speed” steps on the gas toward psychedelia.
An omnichord appears in “Miss You.”
“Up On The Roof” features a mellotron.
“Time Has Come” glides through cosmic keyboards.
And then we come to:
“That Kind of Pain.”
A song that, according to the album’s description, draws inspiration from Air’s “French Touch” sound.
But there’s one small detail.
Howlin’ Jaws has featured the Stockholm Philharmonic on the album
Yes.
The band, which started out playing rockabilly, wraps up its third album by incorporating strings from the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
And this is where *Living The Dream* starts to look really promising.
Because we’re no longer just talking about three guys playing great psychedelic garage rock.
We’re talking about a band that seems to be asking itself:
How far can we take this without losing our own sound?
That’s usually a pretty good question.
They explain it using a tortilla and a boeuf bourguignon
It’s probably one of the best metaphors used recently to describe the process of recording an album.
The band itself compares the difference between *Half Asleep Half Awake* and *Living The Dream* to cooking:
an omelet and a boeuf bourguignon.
The official explanation uses that image to describe the leap in ambition between the two projects.
We don’t know which of the two discs would be the tortilla.
But we understand the idea perfectly.
You can make one quickly.
The other one needs ingredients.
Time.
Layers.
Cooking.
And patience.
“Living The Dream ” seems to clearly fall into the second category.
But “Maximum Speed” doesn’t have much patience
The new single represents the complete opposite.
Run.
And he laughs, too.
The lyrics take the three band members back to their teenage years and bring back some wonderfully questionable images from the early 2000s.
Sneakers designed to look fast.
Shorts that are too long.
Bleached hair with questionable results.
And, of course:
Justice.
It’s nostalgia, but without reverence.
Howlin’ Jaws doesn’t seem to look back on his teenage years and say, “Everything was better back then.”
It seems more like he’s looking at her and thinking:
Did we really leave the house looking like that?
The video doesn’t take itself too seriously either
“Maximum Speed” is released alongside an official music video and captures that exact feeling.
The music magazine *La Grosse Radio* has described it as a sort of psychedelic vacation postcard, featuring instruments, water, and just enough visual absurdity to make it all fit with the song.
And that matters.
Because behind all the sophistication of the new album, there’s something that Howlin’ Jaws seems reluctant to let go of:
the fun.
There’s another story about Howlin’ Jaws that deserves to be told
Before continuing, it’s worth taking a brief detour from rock music.
Because these three musicians have also composed music for the theater.
Howlin’ Jaws worked on *Électre des bas-fonds*, directed by Simon Abkarian.
The play won three Molière Awards and two Syndicat de la Critique Awards.
And one of those awards went to them, in fact:
Best Composer of Music for the Stage.
It’s not exactly the typical background for a garage band.
But he begins to explain why his music has taken on more and more dimensions.
Meanwhile, they learned how to be a live band
Europe.
United States.
Japan.
Howlin’ Jaws has spent the last few years doing what any rock band that hopes to last should probably do:
play.
And play a lot.
They have shared the stage or the bill with acts such as The Black Keys, The Limiñanas, and Les Wampas.
That experience also ended up making its way into “Maximum Speed.”
The song’s breakdown stems precisely from the way the band has learned to stretch and distort songs during live performances.
They didn’t write a song just to figure out how to play it on stage later.
Part of the setting was already in the song.
And yes, Howlin’ Jaws is coming to Spain
Here’s another reason to write down the name.
On November 28, Howlin’ Jaws will be in Santiago de Compostela as part of the Outono Códax Festival.
And the co-headliner makes the event even more interesting:
The Sadies.
The concert will serve to introduce *Living The Dream* in Spain following its release on October 2. The November 28 date has also been confirmed by specialized Spanish media outlets.
If the new songs go over as well on stage as “Maximum Speed” suggests, it could be one of those nights where part of the audience walks in wondering who this French band is…
and he goes out to look for his records.
If you like King Gizzard and Tame Impala, start here
Musical comparisons are always dangerous.
Howlin’ Jaws is not Tame Impala.
It’s not King Gizzard, either.
Not even The Black Keys.
Not even The White Stripes.
And that’s exactly the point.
But there are enough points of reference to use those names as coordinates.
If you’re into King Gizzard’s mutant psychedelia, there’s something here for you.
If you enjoy Tame Impala’s melodic flair and textures, you’ll enjoy this, too.
If you miss the raw energy of the first garage of the 21st century, you’ll find traces of it.
If you still think The Beach Boys’ harmonies are one of humanity’s greatest inventions, “Maximum Speed” has a surprise in store for you.
And if you also enjoy it when a band uses its influences to go in a different direction instead of just copying them…
Howlin’ Jaws deserves a chance.
We Discover Howlin’ Jaws
Maybe in a few years, it will seem strange to introduce them this way.
That would be good news.
For now, they’re three childhood friends from Paris who started out playing rockabilly, traveled to London to record on tape with Liam Watson, added some psychedelia to the mix, won an award for writing music for the theater, and ended up in Sweden recording an album with a member of The Soundtrack Of Our Lives.
Along the way, they’ve encountered The Black Keys, Japan, the United States, vocoders, mellotrons, omnichords, country music, disco, and even a philharmonic orchestra.
That’s not bad.
On October 2, we’ll find out just how far it goes Living The Dream.
In the meantime, there’s a much simpler way to get to know them.
Search for “Maximum Speed.”
Turn up the volume.
And press play.
The rest, as the title says…
It goes pretty fast.
