Deep States - Vinyle Orange

Description

THE AUSTRALIAN AVANT-PUNK QUARTET'S THIRD ALBUM. Most of us have experienced a true inner storm over the past year and a half, but even for a band that has made a career out of songs dealing with political and social crisis, there was a new gloom in the air, a jaded fatigue. The third album from the Australian avant-punk quartet, titled Deep States, explores familiar territory as well as new cultural ground, while delving deeper into the subjective state of contemporary panic. While not entirely a protest album, Deep States references QAnon, the January 6th Capitol riot, pizzagate, clashes between Make America Great Again and Antifa, waterboarded Martians, the dangerous cults of the Shining Path and Heaven's Gate, not to be outdone, and Romeo spies who court us at night only 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 don't pretend everything is fine. What makes Tropical Fuck Storm so great is the intersection between their dark yet satirical storytelling and their musical arrangements aimed at subverting imposed dogmas and principles. These are songs that experiment, moving forward and backward at their own pace. They cling to oblique rhythms before sliding into jazzy, distortion-saturated jams so tumultuous they would make Charlie Mingus proud. Musically, Deep States goes wherever it wants, venturing into pop, R&B, Talking Heads-esque new-wave, Delta blues, Tom Waits-style rock, and even hip-hop with references like the Wu-Tang Clan or Missy Elliot. Barriers are not just broken; they seem to have completely disappeared. Right now, some parts of the world are opening up or trying to. But Tropical Fuck Storm is here to remind us that many of our most urgent political and social problems have been around for a long time now. As the signs of the last crisis fade, and the dull ache of consciousness with it, Deep States is here to remind us that there is no foreseeable end to human stupidity, nor, fortunately, to the creativity that resists it. In recent years, we've all heard that din in our own heads – Tropical Fuck Storm has turned it into music.