When Hippo Campus returned last month with “Kick In The Teeth,” from their forthcoming Wasteland EP due in April, the twang caught a few folks by surprise. The band’s cowboy era continues on new single “Yippie Ki Yay,” less indebted to folk & country songwriting than the tune that preceeded it and more a return to the cathartic roots of their early material.

The single is accompanied by a vivid, stop-motion style visualizer directed by Julian Gross. Of the release, Hippo Campus says, “we initially started writing this song 6 years ago. it’s a story within a story. the narrative follows a character who has been outlawed but zooms out in each chorus to the perspective of the characters writing the story. it deals with “giddying up” in the sense that we gotta keep on keeping on despite not knowing what the fuck we’re doing a lot of the time.

imposter syndrome. the etymology of the word “yippie” is not commonly agreed upon, but in the 1936 song “I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)” written by Johnny Mercer about a changing landscape of the traditional cowboy portrait, the lyrics seem applicable to our current state of affairs, perhaps the human condition; the constant observation and resistance to social change. the ugly reflection of a faux cowboy not knowing how to actually, really, truly rope a steer.”

Hippo will be heading out on the road later this year. Tickets in the tour section.