ULTRAPOP - The Armed (2021)
Besides blathering on about my own favorite music, I consume a ton of content about other people’s favorite music. This week, I’m taking some advice. This one was featured in Treble’s 50 Best Hardcore Albums of the 21st Century (as well as my own memories of 2021’s loudest music)
I described God Is An Astronaut yesterday as “structured, measured, and loud.”
That might have seemed an odd way to put it, but if you want to hear a very different approach to loud music–let’s say “chaotic, energetic, and loud”–well I’ve got that right here, fam.
This certainly has elements of pop and rock, but they’re buried in under a lot of distortion and fuzz, with all or most frequencies in the signal maxed to the breaking point. The intent, I think, is to sound like somebody punched holes in your otherwise high quality speakers to create a bit more edge.
Still, this is anything but lo-fi. Besides the punk and hardcore sounds you’d expect, you’ll also find the clockwork brutality of a lot of industrial music as well, giving it an eerie quality.
The stereo panning effects and the various elements moving up and down in the mix make it clear that all of this is designed on some level. It’s just that it’s designed to make you vaguely uneasy and defensive.
There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on here. You can dig into the details, or you can let it land a left hook to your ear. It’s great either way.
