Holy shit, what a time to be alive. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know it doesn’t involve debating whether or not the moral decision is voting for the guy who funded a genocide. So, I’m going to call that a major win in a world that can’t always be as perfect as I want it to be.
But you know what is pretty damn perfect? Gloop’s new album Tension. It won Coolest Album of The Week!
Wanna know what else is cool? Our other finalists this week, duh. cool sorcery’s TERRA INVADERS just might be Marcos Assis’ most complete garage egg punk vision yet (which is wild because this album is stuffed with guests). Alberto Boccardi has made a haunting and strange work of art with Apnea. And the runner up this week was Oruã with PASSE. This album is like if you churned 90s Northwest indie through an afrobeat grinder and spiced it with just the right amount of weird. Perfection.
You can tell all the finalists by the asterisk next to their name.
You can tell your friends about all the cool new albums you found at…
The Coolest Stuff of The Week | July 24th
dim – planted in the soil
Genres: Punk, emo, screamo
cool sorcery – TERRA INVADERS *
Genres: Alternative, garage, egg punk
Oneida – Expensive Air
Genres: Rock, psychedelic, experimental
Alberto Boccardi – Apnea *
Genres: Experimental, electronic, drone
Slumbers – Everything Seems Upside Down, We’re Just Frozen in Time
Genres: Punk, hardcore punk, alternative
fupper – Hair Clouds
Genres: Alternative, abstract, loops
Oruã – PASSE *
Genres: Experimental, afrobeat, indie rock
The Kitchenettes – Demos E.P.
Genres: Alternative, indie pop, power pop
DETACH THE ISLANDS – A Highly Magnified History
Genres: Punk, hardcore punk, screamo
Nowhere Squares – Dulces Funarios
Genres: Punk, alternative, indie rock
Neon Kittens – Not Yr ALiCE
Genres: Post-punk, no wave, dub
Los Campesinos! – All Hell
Genres: Alternative, emo, indie rock
Gloop – Tension
Genres: Post-punk, no wave, noise rock
A quick listen to this album will tell you it’s a very quick listen. At just 13 minutes, Tension is by far the shortest album to get Coolest Album of The Week, so I feel like I’m going to have to justify this pick, especially when there were other great, longer albums I could have picked instead. And no, this isn’t a case of those other finalists lacking. It’s not about what those albums weren’t. It’s about what Tension is.
Over the course of about a half-dozen releases, Gloop has grown stranger, more experimental and far more interesting than the already great band they were at the very beginning, culminating in their best work yet.
This feels like the put-it-altogether moment for the band, where the artistry they threatened to reach on their previous releases finally came fully within their grasp. They’ve managed to meld the urgency of their earlier work with passages of abstract, shapeless sound, creating a soundscape of noise that is at once abrasive and comforting. Tension has the texture of a heavy wool blanket when sitting alone by a fire at night.
Somehow, the noise is simultaneously wilder and more purposeful, as if meaning is derived only from the runic scribbles carved out from their instruments. The absolute fury of chaos works because it’s grounded in rhythm. Max Detrich is a noise punk drumming genius who stitches these suites of noise-rhythm together with his walloping beats. Each track pulsates under his command, like a conductor willing the bass, guitar and vocals to rise and lower; start and stop.
As a vocalist, Dominic Giannanoto has reached another level, nearly on par with his always brutally brilliant guitar playing. He feels let-loose, like something unnatural broke inside of him and will never be fixed. This is the most relentlessly unhinged he’s ever sounded, as if caught in an out of body experience. And I mean this in the best way possible.
It’s as if he’s channeled the spirit of his guitar work into his vocals.
The interesting thing about that is, like everything else with this band, both the vocals and the guitar possess more of a rhythmic quality than melodic. And yet they both still exhibit just enough melodic sensibility through all the discordant ether that there’s a strange catchiness to it all. The abstract, experimental parts carve their way toward the melodic moments and back again.
And oh Jesus, Surf Makonnen weaves his bass between Giannanoto’s guitar and Detrich’s drums perfectly, causing each song to buzz menacingly. It often feels like the bass itself is hunting you or performing a ritualistic dance. It’s somehow both threatening and inviting at the same time. Like a charming serial killer.
The songs themselves move. They force you along with them, a constant wave of motion. This is true not just in the propulsive quality of each instrument but in the production from Danny Gibney, too.
Gibney manipulates the stereo field subtly but magically, each instrument moving about dynamically yet naturally.
With so much noise going on, it could have been hard to create enough room to breathe, but these tracks are strangely airy despite also being a complete wall of noise.
The end result is a sonic masterpiece from a band pushing the noise rock/post-punk artform forward. But I’m going to be honest with you, at this point, you probably could have already listened to the album. But you (probably) read this instead. And if you got to these words without listening to this album, that’s a really huge waste of time. You could have spent that time listening to Tension. Even if you already listened to it before, go listen to it again instead of reading this shit. Come on.