Angelwings Marmalade - As The Motherboard Watched Back

Released: June 14

If I only had one word to describe this album, it would be probably be "oh my god, what the f*ck, my ears and brain are on fire and I think I'm about to have a stroke but I'm enjoying myself too much to stop it." And yes, that is definitely more than one word unless you read it without any of the spaces in between them. It's loud and aggressive with a definitively crazed energy to it, but also has these somewhat calmer moments that still have the insane energy but with a slower delivery compared to other moments. For example, it opens up with "Sushi, Xylitol, Live Resin, Dan McLellan" which has all the speed and aggression of a rabid mountain lion on methamphetamine, complete with unintelligible screaming and hyper rapid fire percussion. It's just the introduction to the album lasting only about a minute and a half but it successfully cooks your brain in that short amount of time. The next song, "Magnetospheric Eternally Collapsing Obfuscated Port" has a lot of the same sonic qualities but wrapped up in a slower beat with, dare I say, a bit of a groove to it even with a the noise-filled craziness. 

With the lyrics throughout this album, its definitely not all just raspy or unhinged screaming. The third track, "Fuck If I Deserve My Dreams Like Sandwiches In My Brain,"  uses a... let's call it a spoken word approach. It features a guest speaker rambling in the most disorienting manner imaginable for most of it saying all kinds of memorably strange things such as "bleeding out but my blood is effigies in the form of a mold spore sparking with protons" and "yea, no, ignore the white horse in the corner." The mad ramblings mix up well with the heavy percussion and the wild variances in the rhythm as it progresses in a genuinely fun and insane way.   

The thing I really loved about this album is just the back and forth between tempos, some of which are slow enough to be just almost slightly groovy while others are full on assaults of rapid blasting drums and noise. Sometimes you even get both in one track, really throwing any sense of predictability into the furnace, probably just to hear the sounds it makes. Even all the way to the end, the manic energy keeps going as the final track brings back some of that mad rambling of earlier except with a slightly frightening energy that implies some kind of breakup but it sounds genuinely unsettling in a way that I can't describe, but I can definitely feel.