Smartpunk Records – October 15, 2021
The world is a vampire. Wanna go for a ride?
The best way I can describe the latest release from Daytona Beach’s self styled Adult Contemporary Emo Punks, Virginity, is to compare it to playing an RPG. As a whole, POPMORTEM presents itself as a storied saga but really it’s a collection of side quests stitched together seamlessly, weaving together a self-deprecating depiction of dealing with inner turmoil.
From the onset, you can feel the frustration build with the intensity of the opening track, “We Get It,” starting off with a slow rolling soliloquy about grappling with the inevitability of growing up framed by the soft plucking of guitar strings, before exploding into a grinding guitar riff and an ever increasing vocal energy. Is the grass really greener on the other side? Sometimes it seems that way. As things progress into “Nosferattitude (The Vampire Song),” most notable is the contrast between bright, almost clean guitar work, and dirty, dark, heavily overdriven downstrokes guided along by the pounding drums and a delightfully dirty bass line. Instruments drop in and out, which you’ll come to find is common across spectrum of songs on the album, adding to the feeling of being pushed and pulled in different directions. “You Can’t Stop The Machine” follows the same mid tempo formula and adding a noodling guitar riff and a second verse acoustic transition but still mostly colored by power chords and a few palm mutes. Here we find our humble narrator opining about the impermanent nature of life and our lack of control in how it plays out. “Destiny’s an awful thing, it won’t slow down for you or me.”
There’s a bit of a short intermission with “Best Friend” as it seems to cycle through the the stages of grief that accompanies a loss. It starts of softly, building slowly with a lo fi unplugged foundation and accompanied by a trumpet, coming to a crescendo with a wall of noise, and eventually descending back to where it began before moving on to the record’s first single, “IamYOUareMEtoo.” I’m getting obvious Jeff Rosenstock vibes throughout but maybe more so here, although my first thought after hearing the spoken word aspect of the song is that it’s somewhere between Weezer‘s “Undone – The Sweater Song” and Nada Surf’s “Popular.” The song tackles themes of coming to terms with navigating your own narcissism and projecting your shortcomings onto others.
“Phantom Bangs” shows a slightly different side of the band’s musical repotoire, cow punk bands like Two Cow Garage come to mind. There’s a twang evident in the guitar sounds alongside lyrics about the silent cues of screaming for help and failing to acquire it. “I’ll do what I can, burn it at both ends and go down in flames in the middle.” Once again things start off with another sort of monologue diving deep into themes of dealing with depression and self loathing, silently suffering and screaming inside. They start shifting their sound a little more in “What’s The Point” which, in my humble opinion, is one of the heavier things heard so far with a guitar smashing introduction, hammering snare. It all leads into a crushing breakdown, complete with blood curdling screams, all while posing questions about the efficacy of relationships. Their trajectory finds them taking things to an even darker corner of the their psyche in “Common Denominator” delivering a soundscape that could easily be at home in an Alfred Hitchcock horror flick. It’s ominous feel, shrill guitar solos, dark and stormy downstrokes, and angry and threatening vocals, is likely the elevator music playing in the background during your decent into hell.
Closing out what’s technically their sophomore effort after their double EP What Is Time/Death To The Party released via Wiretap Records in 2020 is “Best Western Expansion.” The beginning is guided by a soft synth akin to those found on Folk Implosion’s “Raise The Bells” from the closing scene in Larry Clark’s cult favorite, Kids, just before once again bringing you to the brink but, as these songs often do, it ends right back where it began. It’s a fitting finale to this emotionally charged endeavor.
Overall, the guitars compliment one another, from sparkly and slightly surfy with just enough gain and grit, to deeply distorted and heavy handed. The bass gets filthy in the best of ways and the rhythm section hits hard serving as the bedrock for the array of string noises and varied voices whose intensity ebbs and flows from soft spoken and subtle to all out animalistic with a fair bit of falsetto for good measure in between. I won’t go as far as saying it’s Weezer worship but a love song like “Just Like The Way” would argue otherwise. Pinkerton anyone? With sounds ranging from Smashing Pumpkins to Superdrag or even Pup and Prince Daddy and the Hyena, Virginity’s POPMORTEM is an auditory adventure of epic proportions. While the album’s consistent in it’s dreary undertones, singer and guitar player Casey Crawford’s experience in standup comedy brings balance lyrically to the often times morose subject matter. Certainly a dark humored approach makes swallowing the pill a little more palatable.
Jerred Lazar is a make believe musician and wannabe writer attempting to survive in Washington DC
