The Breakdown
Phsychedelic indie-electronic-rock experimenters Spooky Cool have delivered something truly special on their new album Existential Pie.
Wasting no time, the album quickly introduces the kind of sporadic, intense and fiercely creative soundscapes to be expected across the album on the opener ‘New Ignored’. punching beats, fuzzy bass and a sea of dappled of sawing electronics surrounding the silky, falsetto heavy lead vocals, instantly comparable to Glass Animals. As wild guitar lines and vocal processing dances around the busy soundscape, it’s already somewhat overwhelming and intense but equally, oddly catchy. Startling and strikingly original, the same kind of feeling as the very first time I heard Anna Meredith, it’s fresh, experimental and untethered.
Track 2 ‘Time Will Tell’, brings a more straight up psych-rock approach with driving live drums, fuzzy guitar lines and some brilliant male-female vocals giving the track a central pin. As the track develops bringing washes of synth and sections of wild, explosive expression, the awesome experimental tendencies of the band shine once more.
Elsewhere on the album ‘VMFA’ takes a more straight up Indie approach before gradually building into a beguiling, ultimate-section, trippy rock extravaganza. ‘Only Colour’ leans further into the bands electronic side while ‘Sedan’ offers choppy rhythms, fast paced vocals and a hypnotic blend of live instrumentation and experimental electronics.
Closing with the at first spacious wind instruments and then intense and explosive soundscape of ‘I Lick the Sweat off Your Back’, the band close on a fittingly multicoloured note, hammering home the true creative and unapologetic nature of their music.
There’s no question, Existential Pie is an absolute wonder. As much as you try to put it in a box, there is no describing the genre of the music without a longwinded, badly connecting list, so here we go: psychedelic-experimental-heavy-rock-electonic-industrial-indie. I still don’t feel like that truly covers it.
The bands music is wild, fascinating and unrelenting. There is moments of calm on the album which lull you into a false sense of tranquility before you’re then quickly smashing in the face with a wall of grinding electronics, intense drum beats and heavy distortion, all the while still retaining an emotional undertone with some delicate vocals and beautiful vocal harmonies which fit neatly in among the barrage of busy musical ideas.
I could wax lyrical about this album for a long time, but rather than continuing to try to describe what I’ve just experienced, I simply implore you to listen to Existential Pie yourself:
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