My thoughts on Jamie Stewarts' experimental art vehicle range from respect to love to wishing he would stop fucking around and write songs as great as what was on "Dear God I Hate Myself". The opening track of this album finds them engaged in a hushed Lynchian ambiance. I do not ask more from them than what the second song delivers. I never ask for the weird to be compromised, I just want a song. "Maestro One Chord" brings this with electronic beats creating an anxious groove, and the vocals mutter in the background. There is more of a rock feel to "Common Loon" with a hefty bass line to give some drive to things.
They get weirder on "Pale Flower" which sounds like an audiobook of a John Carpenter screenplay narrated by John Waters. It does have enough dynamic shifts to work. The key to these explorations in music as art, lies in "Veneficium" as the hint of prog rock powers the song's groove, creating a balance this album needs to prove they are not just fucking around making odd dissonant sounds, but legit musicians capable of playing their instruments. Even someone like me who has been following this band for the past 15 years, needs to be reminded of this instead of being immersed in what is a brand just like an avant-garde director like David Lynch has branded his own sense of weirdness. This carries over into "Sleep Blvd". They wander back out into the land of abrasive sonic oddities that is "T.D.F.TW". This song is more effective since the listener was just given the taste of songs more grounded in melody.
They are still willing to take things to the other side of the more noisy minimalist side of the spectrum for a song like the trippy swathe of free jazz-like ambiance that is "Bobby Bland". The album closes with "Pina, Coconut and Cherry". This song takes you into a dream state of abstraction. Electronic sounds blip and beep with no form or function aside from the drum beat from a 90s Casio keyboard. Stewart's vocals sound like he managed to capture a nervous breakdown in the studio. This still very much is in line with what this project does, so I can go with the flow on it since they have already given me the actual songs I need from them, you just gotta get this noisy shit out of your system sometimes to have your creative vision realized, this album finds the balance I will give it a 9.
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