Deep States

Description

Most of us have experienced a true inner storm over the past year and a half, but even for a band that has built its career on songs addressing political and social crises, there was a new gloom in the air, a jaded fatigue. The third album by the Australian pre-punk quartet, titled Deep States, explores familiar ground as well as new cultural territories, while delving into the subjective state of contemporary panic. Although it is not quite a protest album, Deep States references QAnon, the Capitol riot of January 6, pizzagate, clashes between Make America Great Again supporters and Antifas, tortured Martians subjected to waterboarding, the dangerous cults of the Shining Path and Heaven's Gate, and not to be overlooked, the Romeo spies who border us at night to betray us in the morning. We live in a world where the bizarre has become the norm, and Tropical Fuck Storm probes this paradox. That said, the band is wary of the importance placed on didactic songs; they make pop records that do not pretend everything is fine. What makes Tropical Fuck Storm so great is the intersection of their dark yet satirical storytelling and their musical arrangements aimed at subverting imposed dogmas and principles. These are songs that experiment, move forward and backward at their own pace. They cling to oblique rhythms before sliding into jazzy jams saturated with such tumultuous distortions that they would make Charlie Mingus proud. Musically, Deep States goes where it wants, venturing into pop, R&B, Talking Heads-style new wave, Delta blues, Tom Waits rock, and even hip-hop with references like Wu-Tang Clan or Missy Elliot. The barriers are not just broken; they seem to have completely disappeared. Right now, some regions of the world are opening up or trying to do so. But Tropical Fuck Storm is here to remind us that many of our most urgent political and social problems have existed for a long time now. As the signs of the last crisis fade, and the dull pain of awareness with it, Deep States is here to remind us that there is no predictable end to human stupidity, nor, fortunately, to the creativity that resists it. Over the past few years, we have all heard that noise in our own heads - Tropical Fuck Storm has turned it into music.