Saturday, March 28, 2020

MODWUMP'S MUSIC FOR BUNKERS


During this surreal time of coronavirus isolation, Modwump's on-target offering, Music for Bunkers is an ideal way to spend an extended session within one's four-wall confines.


The album is divided per two flavors culled from the same coin, with certain electronic selections displaying the natural tensions that spring from any given, dire circumstance and others smacking of revolutionary hope.


"Obsolete Machinery", the opening track, is as swell way to set the pace, spitting forth a wide range of dripping, atmospheric doom, as eerie as a sound-effects record spun to scare and far more foreboding than any stormy night. 


One can detect similar, unsettling traces in the sinister slant of "Papier Machete", which hints at propagandized, Chicken Little fears. The same paranoia splatters from out "Pitter Patter", which gushes of subtle but sublime water torture. "Vaccine for the Masses" and "Boris and Donald" are even more rattling with their gradual proclamations of clamping latches and stinging springs: a set of dungeons brimming of the best and worst of hardcore renderings. But "Dr. Soul" re-imagines it all, with a grating queue of reckless escape that could reduce one to little more than a big skid along some heated road. 


On the upswing, we get "Smithereens", which still presents an apocalyptic ascent, though with a big, damn smile slapped on it. "This Ain't Heaven" churns the same dynamic: creepy in a way, but joyful in spite of its mean misdirection. The cleansing "Vitamin D", the wafting "Blue Skies" and hellzapoppin' "Curfew Crazy" are the strangest and most euphoric of the set, with terse tingles and a stick-it-in-your-ear spitefulness that sure pushes more for life than death.


On the whole, the ambivalent swings of Music for Bunkers" are both dirty and clean, but most of all, perfect for those inner-sanctum interludes when one can't (and maybe shouldn't) get out.

Indulge while the opportunity is ripe:
https://headhumprecords.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-bunkers.

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