Notes on new music: Amusment Parks on Fire - An Archaea (2021, EGB Global) & Deadlights - s/t (2021)

Picture this. Christmas party 2006.  A friend who knows I'm a pretty substantial musichead approaches me about what's been rocking my boat lately. A few names surely came to mind, but the only one I distinctly recall telling him was Amusement Parks on Fire, who's Out of the Angeles from earlier that year still had it's tenterhooks in me. He let off a bit of a scoff, bemused by the band's moniker.  Truth be told APOF's name of choice is both a blend of savage iconoclasm and the stuff of over-the-top, grade school fantasy. The defilement and destruction of the ultimate symbol of juvenile hedonism, if you will.  By and large the music produced by this Nottingham combo isn't quite that incendiary or apocalyptic, but since their 2004 inception, APOF have delivered a consistently visceral experience, entailing a voluptuous dose of heady, effects-laden dream pop with the bruising intensity of muscular alt-rock purveyors on our side of the pond, ranging from Hum to the Deftones. By the way, they took some profoundly serious cues from their own contemporaries and countrymen My Vitriol, if that name is of any significance to you. Between 2004-2010 the Parks were on a concussive tear, unfurling a trio of vital albums and twice as many singles and EPs. As the teens rolled around, the Fire had been extinguished, albeit temporarily, until the band reconvened for 2017's "Our Goal to Realise" single and their 2018 follow-up, "All the New Ends," picking up exactly where they left off on 2010's wonderful Road Eyes.  In the intervening years frontman and fulcrum, Michael Feerick kept busy with the similar sounding Young Light, who gave us a primo EP in 2013, and had involvement with a couple of other projects I have yet to acquaint myself with (Red Shoe Diaries and We Show Up on Radar).  Finally, there was Moral Mazes, his collaboration with J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines) among other musicians that yielded one of 2020's best singles.   

APOF's much belated fourth full-length, An Archaea just saw the light of day June 25th, and the band's self described "88-month moratorium" is officially in the rear-view. The album's opening salvo, "Old Salt" find Feerick and Co. tenacious as ever, melding consoling vocals to a dynamic backdrop of heaving, distortion soaked chords, inhaling and exhaling at the precisely apropos moments.  "No Fissions'" startlingly dramatic beginning soon settles into the mid-tempo forte they've made their current calling card. "Breakers" is a serrated, dream-gaze stunner that builds to an absolutely divine hook, and "Boom Vang" finally scratches that Loveless itch the band has been stretching for all these years.  An Archaea offers some uncharacteristically "ambient" (for lack of a better word) reprieves in the guise of "Gamma" and the moodier "Diving Bell," while the poppy, piano-steeped title track emanates an innovation altogether unique in the Parks oeuvre.  

Even when this album doesn't consistently ascend to the heights of past triumphs like their 2004 debut single "Venosa." or their aforementioned sophomore masterstroke, Out of the Angeles, An Archaea is utterly representative of APOF's strengths which are still as indigenous and gratifying as ever. You can experience the entire thing on your format of choice (even hot pink vinyl, arriving later this fall) via Bandcamp and the band's store.

When is a Well Wishers album not a Well Wishers album?  To get the definitive skinny on this you'd have to go straight to the source, in this case none other than Jeff Shelton. To save you the effort I'll try to sum it up in a nutshell.  The Well Wishers, is Shelton's musical meat and potatoes proposition of which he's staked his power poppin' reputation on over the course of roughly ten albums and shorter form releases since 2010.  Somewhere in the vicinity of 2012, he had conceived a stash of songs that were slightly more aggressive leaning than the fare he normally relegated to Wishers records (not to mention his like-minded predecessor act the Spinning Jennies). With that, Hot Nun was born, as a new vehicle if you will for his brattier "alter ego."

Additionally, Shelton has always had an affection for Anglophile post-punk (think The Chameleons), not to mention shoegaze.  Over the course of the pandemic, his muse led him to hone an entire album that would extrapolate these tangents that have seemingly been accumulating inside him for decades. With that, a whole 'nother umbrella was opened to corral a new set of raindrops, and Deadlights was established.  There aren't 180 degrees of separation between Deadlights and the Well Wishers, or for that matter 90 or even 45 degrees, but the ten songs populating this album rightfully deserved a neighborhood of their own.  I wouldn't go into this one expecting the kind of woozy, tremolo soaked vistas My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive graced us with three decades past, however the driving and loudly ringing guitar-chitecture informing the distortion addled "Breaking Down," "Come Down Slowly," and "Lazy Eye," exude robust textures and a dense firmament we're not accustom to experiencing from indie-pop's favorite well-wisher, so to speak.  Elsewhere, Deadlights' roar is curtailed into dreamier and lucid sonic swells when the chiming "The Knowing" and "Carefree" infiltrate your earbuds or audio portal of choice.  Shelton's newest endeavor is still ultimately rooted in pop, albeit with a decidedly contemplative subtext...and more effects pedals.  Deadlights is available to have, hold and purchase at Bandcamp and Amazon.