Like a therapy session on a roller coaster.
The jump between Viet Cong and
Preoccupations wasn’t exactly a reinvention, because why fix something that isn’t broke? Their first two self-titled albums (obviously under different names) were feats of simmering post-punk brilliance. Tracks like '
March of Progress' and '
Anxiety' were bone-clattering, cathartic affairs; preoccupied with shaking off the shackles of alienation and disillusionment.
Much like their first two, their latest album, aptly named '
New Material', is very much like a therapy session on a roller coaster. From the word go, the album endeavours to rattle you every which way in search of an answer. But, like therapy, this isn’t a search for right answers. It’s more a search for the strength to acknowledge what is happening in the here and now. A search for any answer in the fog of confusion.
Album opener '
Espionage' begins with echoing percussion, almost like a tribal ritual being performed at the end of a long dark tunnel. Here the journey begins, drawn in by this idea of something simple albeit a something that seems so far away, warped by the echo and distance.
