OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE Vol. XIV

VOLUME XIV

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE

JONATHAN KAWCHUK _________ SUNSLEEPER RACHEL RIORDAN _________ SARA MAESE NOBRO

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE VOLUME FOURTEEN - QUARTER TWO

FOR PASSIONATE CREATORS WHO WORK TO FLESH & BONE IN ORDER TO CREATE SOMETHING THAT SHOWS THEIR HEART.

OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE C R E AT I V E T E A M

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R Brandynn L Pope DESIGN

Brandynn L Pope WRITERS

J a m e s L i a m Wa rd PHOTOGRAPHERS Brandynn L Pope

Cassie Deadmond Sean O’Day

W W W. O B S E S S I V E C O M P U L S I V E M A G . C O M E M A I L fleshbonemagazine@gmail.com I N S TA @obsessivecompulsivemag

WA

INDEX 06

NOBRO MUSICIANS

08

RACHEL RIORDAN I L L U S T R AT O R

16

SARA MAESE I L L U S T R AT O R

24

SUNSLEEPER MUSICIANS

28

J O N AT H TA N K AW C H U K MUSICIAN / ENGINEER

34

ALBUM REVIEWS W RT N B Y J A M E S L I A M WA R D

NOBRO NOBRO released a new EP, Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar in February before jumping on tour with Billy Talent across Canada.

The EP holds on it seven new songs since their 2020 release.

Vocalist, Kathryn McCaughey notes that, “Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar is about needing to believe in something. For us, that’s ourselves. Believing that we can and will do it.” Though brief, the band was able to give quick insight to their experience while taking on the turbulent nature of touring with remnants of the pandemic still present.

At the end of February you released a new EP Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar. Tell us a little bit about that experience writing the EP. How much did you go in with before getting to the studio?

It all came together super fast. We kind of do things on the spot and try not to overthink things.

In terms of writing, what did that process typically look like for you on this EP?

This was a quick process, I can’t really put it into words because it felt like the EP pushed itself into existence.

What was it about your past experiences that attracted you to working with producer, Thomas D’Arcy once again?

It was great since we had cried out all of our tears, and got all of the yelling done, during the first experience.

What were some of the themes that you wanted to explore both lyrically and musically on this particular release?

It was less about themes, more about doing what felt good.

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PHOTO BY: Camille Gladu Brouin

When it comes to the visuals associated with your music, what sort of imagery are you drawn to using and that you feel work best for encompassing the sounds of NOBRO?

Anything that makes me feel excited and stoked, like I want to cut my hair off and start a band.

Is there anything else that people should be on the look out from you now that the initial release has been rolled out?

More new music is on the way!

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RACHEL RIORDAN Lucky Bones

Since you’ve been drawing for your whole life, did you go to any post-secondary or formal education surrounding the arts as well or did you remain completely self taught?

I went to a community college about a hundred years ago. The year after I graduated the program shifted completely to computers, so design principles aside, not a very useful education. I did not work in any art field for a long time, just bummed around working in bars and coffee shops. I then bought myself a Mac - one of those ones you could haul around like a suitcase and taught myself how to use it. I also became friends with an Art Director, he encouraged me to get my stuff out there, organize a coherent portfolio and keep learning and pushing myself.

We got married and 18 years later he is still my sounding board to bounce ideas off of. And finally, I come from artistic parents. My father carves and builds furniture, makes jewellery. My mom always sewed, it makes sense that I would eventually shift into these mediums.

You seem to have a grasp on multiple mediums. When it comes too tools, what instruments do you end up using the most? Are you more focused on digital or analog structure for your workflow?

Hmm, well, I have ADHD ... So I work on multiple projects at once to keep focus. I find it easiest to have 3 tables set up in my studio, one for sewing, one for metal work and one with my Mac’s and iPad. It helps my brain to be able to just shift over to a different medium quickly, keeps the interest going. I am also someone who cannot just sit and watch tv, so I always keep the iPad handy for down time. I started using Procreate about 2 years ago and it has been a game changer for me. I now draw solely on that, even the doodles. My sewing machine gets used almost as much, I sketch out the fabric ideas on Procreate, than take that idea to the sewing table.

How do you find yourself approaching into all of these mediums? Do you have projects in mind that lean towards each medium or is it more that you want to try something out and that’s what brings you into it?

I sort of have a “run headlong into it” approach to most of what I do in life. I prefer to just give things a try and see what works. I will get an idea usually in word form first, the show you saw at Vintage came from the words “You were always magic” that came to me when I was feeling pretty sad. The past two years have been so hard on everyone and I felt we are all just walking around feeling numb. That sentence floated through my head and I thought, I am just going to make stuff that makes me smile, and I am going to use all my favourite mediums. I am going to sew big banners that make me happy, and maybe it will make other people smile. This was the first time I ran one thought through different mediums, but it was so satisfying I only want to work that way now!

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Continuing on with your workflow, when you are at the head of a project, how do you start and organize yourself around building it into its final form?

Honestly I am not great at organization, and because I know this I first write everything by hand in a book. Something about ink on paper rather than typing in my phone notes helps with this process. I then will write a list of to-dos that I can put up beside my Mac, being able to check stuff off of a list helps my brain stay focused. If I love the project I can be super-focused, so sometimes I just work till everything is done - to the detriment of my sleep and sanity. That is less ideal, but the nature of being a creative.

What are some objects or pieces that you like to keep in your studio as pieces of inspiration? In general, what does your studio set up look like?

To the untrained eye my studio is madness. So many things inspire me, old children’s books, vintage material I continually collect but can never seem to bring myself to cut up. Every colour thread I can find, band posters, animal skulls and badly done taxidermy. I love the broken and the frayed. A piece of scrap material that is the perfect pink, an old tin that has a beautiful font.

Notes my kids have written me over the years. There is magic in all these little seemingly insignificant things. Swirled all together they make a nest that feels like home. Now - I do try to keep the chaos a little organized, hence the three working tables. Each medium has it’s own corner to shine. I also have a space for my dog Bella and there is usually a bunny running around, chewing all the things and generally wreaking havoc.

Do you have a medium of preference? Or do you find you like to take on these multiple mediums to keep a fresh mind from one piece to the next?

Depends on the day. I can get hyper focused on banners and sewing anatomical hearts, so I will do that for days straight. Some days I need to work at a few pieces at once if my brain feels jumpy. Procreate illustrating is always my go to because I can do it anywhere. Yesterday I woke up and thought “I want pink curtains”, so I just got up and made them. Sometimes I will make something in print first and think “let’s try that in fabric or metal”. I think I just do stuff because I have to, the idea will pop in there and bug me until I get it done. Hand sewing calms my mind the most, it is a very soothing way to create.

When it comes to personal work, are there any themes or ideas that you find yourself most drawn to building around?

Magic is a big one. Not rabbit out of a hat magic, but those glimmers of wonder you get when you aren’t looking for anything in particular.

My characters quite often have closed eyes and heads tilted into to the wind, it reminds me of being little. I find myself looking for the wonder we all had as kids, it can be especially hard to find these days, If I can freeze a bit of that in time I’m super happy.

You have an exceptional amount of clients that you have worked with in the past, but is there a project that you were most excited for and proud of?

Right now I am doing a ton of portrait work, which I had never done before.

I am doing a lot of dogs, which makes me ridiculously happy, but also other pets and now people. The colours are bright and bold and not typical of portrait work (purple cats, pink dogs with flower crowns), but people are really responding to them. Being able to capture an animals personality, or a moment in time with someones child, is such a great feeling.

What would be a dream project for you to work on, or group to work with?

I want to have a giant show, both print and fabric. Bigger than life sized pieces that people can walk around and immerse themselves in, like the nest I work in, without the demon bunny.

Is there any projects that you are currently working on that you are able to discuss?

I am working to help re-brand a brewery. All the labels are digital collage, which was a new way of illustrating for me, but I love the effect!

INSTAGRAM: lucky.bones.studio

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SARA MAESE Hello, and thank you for taking the time to talk with us!

Hi guys! It’s a pleasure for me having the opportunity to talk with you Were you formally trained as an artist to study design and illustration? If so, where did you end up attending school and what brought you to the decision of choosing post secondary?

On the other side, if you didn’t, how did you go about learning the craft on your own time?

I studied a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and also two master’s degree: one in graphic design and another one in web design. I got my BA in the University of Málaga and the two MAs in a graphic design school named Gauss Multimedia, also placed in Málaga.

The decision behind studying this career was because I was really interested in drawing since I was a child and I wanted to pursue that career since then. The graphic design part became years later when I learnt about it being a teenager.

So, I do believe it was a vocational choice for me.

Living in Spain, how do you feel that your neighbourhood or general city affects you as an artist and the type of work that you create?

I don’t think it really affects me on a broad scale, but then every time summer hits, for example, my work tends to suffer the consequences and I start drawing a lot of patterns related with the season. I don’t really like summer at all, so it’s kind of curious how I really enjoy working on those type of illustrations. Maybe it is because of the colorful palettes.

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What is it about people that you love to illustrate specifically?

What has been some of your favourite scenes that your characters have been used in/for?

I’ve enjoyed every project that I’ve worked so far. I think the ones that are my favorites are the licensed products, specially the ones I’ve worked with Back Couture in their garment collections. To be able to see my illustrations in dresses, shirts or bathing suits it’s just over the top. Sometimes it’s feel weird to understand those drawings were made by me.

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Tell us a little bit about your process when you receive a commission. How do you like to start working on a project and how does that progress until you know you have finished a project?

I am usually very fast with my timing, I feel that I have processed my method very well and I tend to work quickly. First of all I send an agreement in case there is not one coming from the client. I like to work in a very secure environment not only for me, but also for the client since it is possible to find some bumps in the road.

When they agree with everything written there and they sign it, first of all I work in the sketches. The time could be around 1-2 days for this part of the process, will depend of the quantity or difficulty of the project.

Then, when they are on the same page about those sketches (I prefer to make the changes here and not after all the work) they need to pay a deposit. After that I will work on the illustrations and when everything is finished I will deliver the work. The format of it will depend on the clients’ needs.

When they receive everything, then they will make the rest of the payment. In this part things can get weird, but so far I have been very lucky with it and I can’t talk bad about any of my clients in that sense. I know some people tend to have problems, but that’s why I prefer to work with an agreement or contract always.

What do you find that you are most inspired by for creating these different scenes and collections of narratives?

Daily life. I mostly draw things that I love like cats, yoga, coffee, breakfast … I think I am highly inspired by all the things that are around me.

Do you have your studio space set up in a way that’s specific to help you drive that inspiration? What do you always make sure to have set up in your work area?

I would love to have a studio dedicated to my work, but right now in the house I live it’s quite impossible to have that, there is no space for it. So I only have a desk near my bed and a little chest of drawers beside it. I tend to no overflow it with things, but I also have some stickers and prints from other illustrators on the walls that help me to set in the mood.

With the massive body of work that you have created, what is your suggestion for other artists who are struggling with their environment to create or the process of creating in itself?

I don’t think the environment per se is a problem, if you want to create you can do it just owning a notebook and a pencil.

Sometimes we think to ourselves that we need this and that for accomplish something and in my opinion the most important thing in whatever you want to do in life is perseverance and a little bit of will power … But I also think the will power can be improved.

So if you want to set an habit of drawing, show up everyday, even if you only draw for five minutes or do a little doodle. It does not matter, the thing is you are doing it and little by little you will have the ability to do more.

Something like that happened to me years ago and for me the only way to get out of that phase was showing up without expecting very much of myself. With time and patience I think I get to surpass that phase. So I only can say to those who want to do something related to illustration (or graphic design, or writing, or whatever) just do something everyday without pushing too much and without beating you for not being able of reaching the top, that is not something you’re going to get at first, the only way to get whatever you want is showing up as much as you can.

Is there anything or any no projects that we should be on the look out for from you?

I don’t think I can talk about future projects that are on the making, but I hope to be able to work for many years in this and I hope to see my patterns and drawings printed in many different kind of products.

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SUNSLEEPER Prior to the release of “You Can Miss Something & Not Want It Back,” we were able to speak with Sunsleeper’s vocalist, Jeffery Mudget. This was in 2019, a time that can’t help but feel a world away after the three years that would follow it. While en route to meet with another tour they were forced to turn around and return home to Salt Lake City due to the initial mark of the pandemic.

When we first spoke with Jeff in regards to the full length, there was a lot of references to coming to terms with sudden changes in life. In the three recent singles from Sunsleeper the band explores even more life shifts that they have experienced since the release of their 2019 Full-Length. We were lucky enough to be able to speak with Jeff once again in relation to these new tracks and the new era that the band is embarking on.

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Late 2020, the members of Sunsleeper packed light into a van and drove across the country to New Jersey where they met with Brett Romnes (The Movie Life, I Am The Avalanche) at Barber Shop Studios. It was the first time that they would be taking part in any kind of traveling for months, specifically since the tour that they had to abandon. It was a complete shock to be in that kind of motion, and as Jeff states, “Fun, but terrifying experience.”

Few ideas were pulled from 2019 as remnants of what they were working on before, and a large portion of their songs came from being isolated. When it came to lyrics especially, the ideas were focused in on the events of 2020 and 2021. The first single they released, “In The Clouds” pulled from the current events and cultural shift. “It’s the realization of different people, ourselves included, weren’t necessarily the people we thought they were, close relatives and friends bubble to thee surface through the cultural shift,” Jeff explains, “We were trying to work through that in that song and accept those changes in those people, and try to move forward. Sometimes it’s hard to move forward depending on how deep the relationship was.”

“All of the lyrics were created in the studio, just about. A lot of them we would be writing ideas down in our phone lyrically or thematically. We didn’t really put it into a song until we were in the studio in late 2020,” Jeff states in regards to their most recent recording process. With the following release of “Currents,” the song lyrically pulled focus from the feeling from the height of the great isolation and the monotonous cycle that most felt. As musicians experiencing it all, there was no real sight of future euphoria when it came to performing music, or even being in the same room as like-minded people. Jeff continued to explain that what it came down to was, “Grappling with the fact that everything is cyclical and that you can get stuck in a routine without realizing it, and getting really hopeless while stuck in a routine trying your best to break free of that.”

For this particular music video they learned heavily into that idea, having the character act out a lonesome routine. Working to build this project, the members of Sunsleeper were heavily involved with that would go into the visuals. Jeffs wife, Megan, took the reigns on the “Currents” music video. She directed it and cultivated thee narrative of it with Jordan Talley (Morongod) editing it. Jeff proudly continues, “She directed it and storyboarded it and really did a great job. It was very impressive to see.”

With everything that they release visually, it was important that the people involved had their styles shine through and do work that was reflective of them. “In The Clouds” was brought to them by guitarist, Matt Mascarena’s, childhood friend Everett Fitch. From there the members weighed in their thoughts to let it evolve which

leant to it being an extensive process but one that they could bee proud of. Everett also took on the work with the artwork for the releases. Each image that has been used for the singles came from a part of his vision. “He’d present a PDF of how the songs and album made him feel and explain the concepts and then we would weigh in on what resonated with us. A lot of it was this nostalgic feeling that the new songs has. Being the age that we are, a lot of that nostalgia reminded us of our childhood and the 90s and that leaned into the 90s aesthetic and childhood and upbringing,” Jeff then laughs while mentioning, “It just so happens that the 90s is kind of back so it was good timing. Happy accident.”

The imagery varies greatly from the previously flat-laying flowers that Sunsleeper had used on their prior EP and Full-Length. Now, the photographs that they went with learned more on referencing the specific songs and the feeling they evoked to Everett. Each image has a person being used in them while over all being darker and hazier. Having that stark contrast in visuals had been completely purposeful. “It feels like a new era of our band for a lot of reasons,” Jeff starts off by mentioning on specific reasoning being, “The previous work of our EP and Full Length were 90% written by myself, not because I wanted to but because certain vantages of time pertained to it with members leaving and timing.

This time around we have a solid line up, we’ve had this line up since 2018 and everyone contributed musically. We have full songs written by other members and people writing lyrics that aren’t just me which is great. It feels like a real band where we are all contributing.”

Having this collaborative effort also lead to the music leaning in a different direction sonically on top of already choosing to work with a new engineer such as Brett Romnes versus Nathan Hussey who they had worked with previously. Because of the difference of engineers, the selection of gear used on either record differed. With Nathan Hussey’s work on You Can Miss Something & Not Want It Back, there was a distinction with the guitars being used. While mostly still in the Fender family, there was different sounds coming through. Jeff comments that, “All of the guitar tones were Nathan Hussey magic. That guy is a guitar wizard.” The difference this time around, is that the songs over all held some consistency with Jeff being able to rely a little more on his Jazz Master specifically across the recording process.

With all of that being said, Jeff does admit that he is probably the least knowledgeable when it comes to the gear side of things within the band. It’s something else that other members have put more time into in recent years, even going on to mention how he’s had the same instrument and medals since around 2011 / 2012 with the exception of one pedal. He recognized the huge collaborative effort that Brett had with other members when it came to his extensive arsenal of gear. He laughs to himself while noting that there were, “Pedals I’ve only seen on the internet and amps that are out of our pay grade. I think he said that he had a pre-amp that used to be Bob Marley’s.” But even then, they over all ended up using even more of their own gear than they had expected.

As of last week, Sunsleeper put out their third single, “Blemishes.”

Jeff hints that there will be more things to be released, “Get excited, there’s some things unexpected with our sound and things we are experimenting with.” He has a clear sense of pride in the body of work that has been released thus far and is excited to get back out and play more shows again. With the summer and early autumn months promising a Festival Season finally happening again, there are a few events that you can catch Sunsleeper on and experiencing some of their new songs live as well as some of the beloved tracks from previous releases.

PHOTOS BY: Aaron Munson

JOHNATHAN KAWCHUK

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Give us a little background of yourself as an artist and composer. Did you receive technical training into engineering and music production, or are you self taught?

I’ve written and deleted this sentence a few times trying to figure out how to answer, but I think the safest bet would be to say that I started as a failed volleyball player. I was supposed to be gone all summer but I got cut from the team and I was all sad and teenaged and I bought this little handheld recorder to play around with in the forest behind my house. I started making drum samples out of sticks and it just sort of progressed from there.

I did end up going to a hell of a lot of formal schooling but I basically switched schools every year trying to chase whatever weird knowledge I needed. Jazz school, a conservatory, an internship in Iceland, pop music university in the UK, field recording training. But most of what I learned was on my own, googling and forum hopping and trying to find others online. It’s still like that for me.

I feel like school can serve as this sort of FEBO cabinet of things you didn’t know existed, but that you will ultimately have to learn yourself.

And there is absolutely no formal program designed for this strange corner of music I’ve lovingly backed myself into.

Let’s jump in and talk about everything that went in to building Everywhen. From my understanding, a lot of it was recorded with daily treks into Kananaskis and compiled over years. What was your original intention going into this project and grabbing these sounds within nature?

I also deleted and rewrote this sentence so many times. The scope was *FUCKED*. That’s basically what I’m trying to get across. Both in the technical digital sense and in the working 10 hours outdoors in freezing conditions sense. In the macro, “Let’s try to do the first recordings outside of music in Atmos” sense but also in the RobertEggers-style-torture-your-collaborators-with-details-like-using-theright-sub-species-of-fir-in-the-artwork sense.

Part of the process was hauling a ton of microphones and speakers into the middle of the Rockies and bouncing vocals around the forest in surround before re-recording them once they reverberated and picked up the characteristic of that terrifying and hallowed place I love so much. So much ecocritical art is one sided, I wanted this work to have a recursive, conversational relationship with its environment and not this “Looking at it from behind the glass” approach. It needed to get rained on a bit and boy did it ever.

The Rockies for me have this inescapable mix of fear and calm and hunger and exhaustion. You get hit with everything at once, and even normally unpleasant states of being feel somehow nourishing. It is overly affecting, and I wanted to somehow take this snapshot of that experience, as a person in this place. As a person who is influenced by and who influences this place. I always say this, but these ecosystems might not outlive us, and it would be a shame if the only evidence we had of them was literal, objective documentation. There should be a record of how it feels or felt.

But I guess articulating my answer to this is a little like music theory; all theory does is try to find patterns in the sort of instinctual things some composers used to do. For me the whole thing was this like haunted/visceral/reflexive compulsion and now I’m sort of piecing together the logic behind it.

Looking back to when you first started grabbing these sound bites, how does the final result compare to what you imagined building from the jump?

I think the loss of conversion from an idea to the final product on this one is about as close to 0% as I’ll ever get.

Here is a screenshot I sent to Brad after working on some visuals for the last single.

When you went into start piecing together these tracks, were you working on them as you collected sounds, or was it more of a process that you waited until you had a sizable collection before picking it all apart to put together?

It was so different than North, which was like every single piece I wrote made it on the record in chronological order. For Everywhen it was like building a huge pantry from which you can make a meal. It was this big unorganized moraine of improv sessions with vocalists, sampled instruments from their voices, field recordings, impulse responses, little melodies. Years worth of this stuff.

Connory Ballantyne, my blood brother and saviour, had the enormous task of taking what might have amounted to days worth of raw recordings, ideas, and finished tunes and condensing it into some kind of order that felt like an album.

Would I be right in assuming that you were actively working on Everywhen while also creating North?

I only got one at a time in me! North took a while to get out the door; I finished writing it in 2014 and by the time it came out in 2018 I had a few good years of getting in the Everywhen zone.

Tell us a bit about the decision to go that extra mile and have everything in Dolby Atmos as well as the process in setting up the 12 microphones that went into collecting all the details that this entails.

The year is 2016, and music in Atmos absolutely is not a thing. There are a handful of well-funded classical Blu-rays (which I love deeply), and beyond that nothing.

Like everything on this record, and especially the tech, this decision was made because it had to happen to best serve the music.

Capturing these spaces in stereo, in 60 degrees of 2D sound, was not at all how I experience these spaces. It needed to be 3D. There are a ton of largely academic ways to do this. But I work as a film composer which got me thinking that since commercial cinemas are equipped with Atmos for film, maybe that was my best shot at having a publically available way of showing people this record. I wanted this thing to be accessible and not just a tech exercise.

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I understand that with the sizes of files that you were working on there were a lot of logistical challenges. What

sort of work did you have to do in order to troubleshoot this and ensure that you were able to bring this project to completion?

It’s easy if you take eight years to finish! For real though sometimes we just had to wait for new tools to be fixed or developed. For the person who wrote the program to finally answer their old university email. I once had to straight-up cash in some points and travel to Munich to solve a problem. The battle of this record appears like it was waged in the mountains, and a lot of it was, but the REAL struggle was on my computer, day in and day out.

What brought you to title the full body of work as Everywhen?

How do you feel it embodies all of these tracks?

So much of the titling on the record took many, many iterations (there is certainly a pattern here). Brad and I started our A/V studio a few years ago and called it Studio Everywhen. So much of our work has to do with trying to feel out this deep time anachronism that happens when you are in an ecosystem that lives at more tempos than you can count, that’s older than you can imagine. It was the only word that felt right.

As it was with my last record, naming stuff comes at the end of the process and is maybe more a foreshadowing of the next thing to come.

Tell us a bit about the artwork done by Brad Necyk. I love how you have this very textural image, it plays into the texture of Everywhen. Was this a commissioned piece or something that resonated with you?

It was a commission! Totally from scratch. The artwork process was like, doing another album all over again. So much detail, so much research. There are about five albums worth of unused album art.

There was a digital side to the art (Brad) and a physical side (Tracy).

Brad took this concept of how sound moves and diffuses through the forest using the visual metaphor of light through glass trees, which we could only accomplish digitally. I was so scared to go digital but Brad makes these uncanny not-rendered-looking scenes that feel like practical effects.

There was also this sort of transmutation thing where we wanted to decouple shapes and materials that exist in the Rockies from each other and remix them, and that was all Tracy. I sent Tracy this care package with limestone dust from a quarry near Banff, harvested pine sap, and all these materials I procured carefully from the area.

Everything had to be locally sourced from the recording site. She recast some of the pine resin into a mould of the 3D satellite image of the mountains around my recording location. She made clay from the limestone powder. It was an enormous task. And the incredible Frédérique Gagnon helped pull it all together into album form.

Now that this work is finished, is there anything else that you want to push alongside with it? Is there anything that people should be on the look out for from you?

When I finished Everywhen I thought alright: this is sort of my life’s thesis. I have completely, exhaustively, monastically turned inside out my figurative pockets and maybe even my guts and there is nothing left to say. But now I’ve started the next record, which I think might be even larger in scope. I’m so excited. I love making these things. I’m ready for another two or three or eight or twenty years or however long it takes.

A

LBUMS OF REVIEWS

WRITTEN & CURATED BY JAMES LIAM WARD

GHOST

03.11.2022

6.9

Impera

Loma Vista

Swedish rock band Ghost have returned to bestow listeners with their fifth studio LP, Impera, an album whose themes surround the rise and subsequent fall of evil regimes. I heard my first taste of this album via the slasher movie Halloween Kills, which used Impera’s lead single “Hunter’s Moon” for the film’s soundtrack. I found the song to be a bit underwhelming by Ghost’s standards, but I couldn’t help noticing the connection between Ghost and the Halloween franchise: both are relying heavily on nostalgia from the seventies and eighties to inform their current work. In the context of Impera, “Hunter’s Moon” has grown on me, but still feels underwhelming slated between my two favourite songs on the album, “Call me Little Sunshine” and “Watcher in the Sky”.

“Call Me Little Sunshine” is the second single from Impera and perhaps one of the best songs the band has written to date. At first listen, the track’s slow tempo feels like a hinderance, but Ghost uses the open space of the song masterfully, crafting an epic monolith of a song with memorable sing-along lyrics, slick bass slides and massive shots of syncopated guitars and drums. “Watcher in the Sky” makes up for its simplistic chugging riffs with an undeniably addictive groove and a stunning bridge layered with winding, harmonized lead guitars. Both tracks are immediate highlights on the album, but they are also preceded by songs equally as compelling. “Kaisarion” is an exhilarating opener whose drum performance perfectly accentuates the eerie choral chants trading off with Tobias Forge’s vocals. The following “Spillways” is just as memorable, with emotive vocal melodies and staccato pianos that evoke the finest in eighties arena rock and glam metal.

And if only it ended there. The first half of Impera is remarkably strong, but the same cannot be said for the second half. Following a sombre orchestral

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interlude, the band transitions into “Twenties”, one of their weakest and most head-scratching songs to date. The track is built around a drum pattern and groove that one would typically find in a Dancehall tune; the band’s attempt at taking a Latin groove and trying to make it metal is admirable, but it isn’t the instrumental I have a problem with. Tobias Forge’s preachy and cringe-inducing vocals coupled with the shrill backing vocals on the refrain make this one of the most unlistenable Ghost songs I have ever heard—swing and a miss, ghouls. The other songs on the back half of Impera have their fair share of problems as well: the acoustic arpeggios in “Darkness At The Heart of My Love” give the verses a whimsical feel that I like a lot, but the lyrics and melodies on the refrain are repeated ad nauseum to the point where this track is nearly as unlistenable as “Twenties”.

“Griftwood” would be an okay track if it wasn’t blatantly ripping off Van Halen, and in the context of the record it feels completely inconsequential compared to earlier bangers like “Spillways”. The closer isn’t much of an improvement either. “Respite On The Spitalfields” has some good moments, specifically the refrain, but the track is primarily a seven minute slog. The instrumental ending is intended to mirror “Imperium”, the albums intro, but the way the band gets to this point feels messy; what is supposed to come off as a “full circle” moment on the record simply feels contrived. If Impera was an EP consisting of the first six songs on the album, it would be one of Ghost’s strongest releases, but it is tragically bogged down by a ponderous second half.

BEST TRACK: Call Me Little Sunshine WORST TRACK: Twenties

SIMPLE PLAN 05.06.2022

7.0

Harder Than It Looks Self Released

Two decades into their career, Canadian rock band Simple Plan have circled back to their pop punk origins on their sixth studio album, Harder Than It Looks. On this latest self-released project, it seems like Simple Plan have a naturally simple plan: give the fans what they want. Many listeners (myself included) have been disappointed by the band’s consistently unbearable forays into pop music—I’m looking at you, “I Don’t Wanna Go to Bed”. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Harder Than It Looks to be a tight, well-written and admittedly fun return to form for Simple Plan. It all kicks off with the upbeat opener “Wake Me Up (When This Nightmare’s Over)”, an instant classic for the band with traditional palmmuted verses and an arena-ready chorus. It’s pretty tried and true as far as pop punk goes, but the track has an infectious energy and good interplay between the bass and lead guitar riffs.

“Ruin My Life” is a well-written tune too, building its bare hook with layers of harmonies before dropping into a spacious instrumental refrain. Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 makes an appearance but doesn’t leave much of an impression, and while the lead guitar in the bridge builds up solid momentum and urgency, it doesn’t last long enough to be truly satisfying. The ending makes up for this, as the drums pick up in intensity before transitioning into a full-band version of the hook—a great way to close out the song and keep things interesting until the very end. Pierre Bouvier’s dejected lyrics on “Antidote” set a more sombre tone before busting into an enormous chorus layered with an epic ascending lead line. Somehow, Simple Plan are coming out with some of their most hard-hitting tunes twenty years into their career. The effects-heavy guitar solo and penultimate “whoaoh’s” are the only cruxes of the song, but neither stick around long enough to be too offensive. It feels like the entirety of “Antidote” is built around the chorus, which is fair because it’s the best chorus on the record, but this is where Simple Plan’s aversion to bridges becomes easily noticeable.

From the head-bobbing chorus of “Million Pictures of You”, to the brash horn melodies of “Iconic”, almost every song on Harder Than It Looks has a bridge that is way too short. It’s like the band is frightened of them or is always in a rush to get to that final chorus. This happens even when the bridge is great, like during the hard-hitting breakdown of “Congratulations”. The only song where this doesn’t happen is “Best Day of My Life”, a high-energy standout with lightning performances and a great lyrical message, which gets bonus points for breaking the streak of tensecond bridges. The laid-back tempo and pop-rock instrumentation of “Anxiety” make this track the black sheep of the album, and even though it feels like radiobait, I think the song could’ve turned out a lot worse: the only egregious part of the track is the post chorus, where Pierre tells his anxiety to “get away, get away, get away from me”, delivering a rapid-fire inflection that I can only describe as akin to The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give it Away”. And yes, it sounds just as ridiculous when Simple Plan does it.

“Two” is the obligatory closing ballad but delivers a surprisingly poignant concept: The track is about divorce and considering everyone in Simple Plan has wives and kids and families now, I found the exploration of this topic pretty intriguing. The band isn’t just pulling at heartstrings for the sake of it, and the song is pretty clever in how it explores the position of a child whose family is falling apart but there’s nothing they themselves can do about it.

Again, the bridge is about as short as Simple Plan could possibly make it, but that doesn’t hurt the potency or message of the track. Overall, I was surprised at how consistent and energetic Harder Than It Looks turned out, making me wonder if this could be the start of another solid run of albums for Simple Plan.

BEST TRACK: Best Day of My Life WORST TRACK: Anxiety

STATE CHAMPS 05.13.2022

6.5

Kings of the New Age Pure Noise

Pop punkers State Champs wrote three albums worth of material for their fourth LP, Kings of the New Age. From there, the New York quartet honed those thirty songs down to eleven tracks that best suited the band’s bright and peppy sound. The first of these tracks is “Here to Stay”, an opener sporting a huge chorus and solid energy which makes up for its lackluster and incessantly looping guitar lead. The following “Eventually” has a much stronger start, with a strong rhythm and anthemic hook that evolves from a driving drum groove to a bouncier second half. The dynamics and effective string samples over the final refrain indicate—to me, at least—that this track would have made a much better first impression than “Here to Stay”.

The lead single off Kings of the New Age is “Everybody but You”. I love the laid-back and cheeky tone of this track, which is immediately established by the guitarist messing up the first note of the song. The verses are layered with subtle electronic drums and dueling acoustic guitar lines that are perfectly juxtaposed by massive shots of electric guitars and drums. The band builds tension well by holding back until halfway through the first chorus, which in turn makes the second chorus hit even harder. The whole song is executed very well, and Ben Barlow’s lively performance is a good change up before the final chorus. “Outta My Head” is a solid follow up, but the guitar solo and intro really drive home the fact that the lead work on this album just isn’t very memorable or effective.

The songs on Kings of the New Age never lack for energy; the noticeable absence of balladry on this album is unconventional for modern rock records, where the final track is almost always a token acoustic or piano ballad. That being said, some of the songs do begin to blend together by the halfway point. “Fake It” has little going for it other than some interesting bass work, the pianos on “Just Sound” are

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about as non-essential as the song itself, and “Where Were You” fails to leave an impression outside of a few lame lyrics. The back half of Kings of the New Age is not without gems, though. The shimmering guitar leads and grand pianos of “Half Empty” add a melancholic urgency to the song, adding a much-needed shift in tone for the album, while the penultimate “Sundress” displays some of the best vocal melodies on the album over a hard-hitting instrumental.

The ascending synthesizer that opens “Act Like That” are a refreshing texture for the band, and once the punchy drum and bass groove kicks in, it’s hard to deny the track’s catchiness. The chorus is laid-back with a pleasant sentiment, but the big highlight of the song is the appearance of country singer Mitchell Tenpenny, whose powerful and emotive voice immediately outshines everything else on the track. His melodies are soaring and gritty, his rhythmic patterns engaging, and overall I just wish his solo part was longer—I’ll have to content myself with the vocalizations he adds to the last chorus. Of all the thirty songs State Champs wrote, I can’t help but wonder if there were a few tracks that would’ve added a bit more variety to the album; despite its solid energy and handful of great tracks, Kings of the New Age makes State Champs look more like a one trick pony than their album’s namesake.

BEST TRACK: Act Like That WORST TRACK: Fake It

VINCE STAPLEES 04.08.2022

6.5

RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART Motown/Blacksmith

Only a year after his subtle, tight, and fantastic self-titled album, Long Beach’s Vince Staples is striking while the iron is hot with his fifth studio LP, RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART. At almost double the runtime of his last project, Vince Staples uses this album to explore the experience of his childhood home and its current impact on his career, relationships, and overall state of mind. Opening with the unexpectedly sunny keyboards and nimble bassline of “THE BEACH”, Vince serves as the rhythmic foundation of the album’s introduction while the instrumental progresses entirely without a beat. The cheery tone and consistent flows lull the listener into a false sense of security, until a volley of gunshots interrupts everything, aptly setting the tone for the rest of the project.

The lush guitar chords, sharp percussion and dreamy female vocals make for a solid instrumental on the following “AYE (FREE THE HOMIES)”, but the true musical highlight of this song is the layered shots of kick and sub-bass, which make every hit sound absolutely gigantic. I love the sense of hope and triumph to this song, but Vince’s lyrics keep the tone melancholy, mainly with his hook; “If I had one wish, I’d free the homies.” The gang vocals worked into the refrain add an irresistible sense of comradery to the track, and really drive home the lyrical sentiment of the song. “MAGIC” is the first single from the record and took a few listens for me to warm up to.

Mustard’s beat is uncompromisingly west coast; crisp claps, bubbly synth bass and an ethereal melody loop throughout most of the track, but the horns and pianos leading to the song’s conclusion are an unexpected addition that add a lot of depth and texture to the instrumental. Mustard’s spoken word outro is a little pompous, but Vince’s performance remains ironclad throughout; his diverse and melodic flows show off a dexterity that contrasts his typical deadpan delivery, and the hook is both multi-faceted and lyrically sharp.

As RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART continues, the production begins to wear thin. Many of the songs have unintelligible vocal samples, brief runtimes, and dark, amorphous melodies that all begin to blend together. Despite solid vocal performances, “DJ QUIK”, “SLIDE”, “PLAYER WAYS” and “BANG THAT” are all guilty of this and feel formless or instrumentally underwritten.

“PAPERCUTS” breaks the mold solely on the strength and intensity of Vince Staples’ hook, as does “MAMA’S BOY”, whose sharp groove and unique lyrical sentiment make the track stand out amongst its neighbours in the track list. “EAST POINT PRAYER” is maybe the only moment on the record where Vince is actually bringing the track down, delivering his verses in such a listless tone that he actually sounds like he’s falling asleep—a quality that has a similar effect on the listener. “LEMONADE” perks the album up a bit with booming bass and a sprightly tone and although Vince’s verses sound fantastic, I don’t think Ty Dolla $ign could’ve written a more generic feature if he had a gun to his head.

“WHEN SPARKS FLY” is another track worth mentioning, as I was convinced it was a love song, despite the fact that Vince asserts on “ROSE STREET” that he doesn’t write love songs. It wasn’t until I dug deeper into the lyrics, that I realized the partner Vince is rapping about on this track, was actually his gun. Inconsistent middle aside, RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART closes out strong. The hard-hitting bassline and watery keyboard loops of “ROSE STREET” are both urgent and attentiongrabbing, and I love the way Vince puts his cold outlook on life on full display. “THE BLUES” is a great closer as well, with a despairing and sullen guitar lead that compliments Vince’s realization that “money made me numb”. It’s a harrowing send off, but also a beautiful one.

BEST TRACK: AYE! (FREE THE HOMIES) WORST TRACK: EAST POINT PRAYER

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