PREOCCUPATIONS "Preoccupations"

PREOCCUPATIONS "Preoccupations"

September 16, 2016
alternative, punk rock, indie rock, post-punk
Calgary, Alberta
Jagjaguwar

Треклист:

1.Anxiety 04:29
2.Monotony 02:53
3.Zodiac 03:43
4.Memory 11:26
5.Degraded 04:00
6.Sense 01:01
7.Forbidden 01:32
8.Stimulation 04:41
9.Fever 04:31

When the four members of Preoccupations wrote and recorded their new record, they were in a state of near total instability. Years-long relationships ended; they left homes behind. Frontman Matt Flegel, guitarist Danny Christiansen, multi-instrumentalist Scott Munro and drummer Mike Wallace all moved to different cities. They resolved to change their band name, but hadn’t settled on a new one. And their road-tested, honed approach to songwriting was basically thrown out the window. This time, they walked into the studio with the gas gauge near empty, buoyed by one another while the rest of their lives were virtually unrecognizable and rootless. There was no central theme or idea to guide the band’s collective cliff jump. As a result, ‘Preoccupations’ bears the visceral, personal sound of holding onto some steadiness in the midst of changing everything.

Loud and Quiet -
The overall experience is simply a much more listenable one; the LP puncturing the occasionally overwhelming sense of foreboding and paranoia with one of positivity – euphoria, even – just as Flegel sings about “suicide machines” et al.

Pretty Much Amazing -
Whereas bands like Protomartyr and Savages tend to operate in shades of grey, Preoccupations speaks in a monochromatic tongue, which, in addition to translating to more color, also means albums that are not as wearying.

Consequence of Sound -
Understanding Preoccupations is easiest when setting it against Viet Cong. That record was marked by claustrophobic arrangements ... Preoccupations does away with the murkiness, sounding remarkably clear in contrast to its predecessor.

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