"Some of the wooziness of Westerman's early work is still here. Intro "S. Machine" teases a more off-kilter album, with erratic synthetic horns that land somewhere between 22, a Million and an Animusic DVD. What follows is more soothing, but with added complexity from Warpaint and Kurt Vile drummer Stella Mozgawa. Her layers of drums and percussion capture Westerman's restlessness on "Adriatic," while her subtle dropped beats on "Mosquito" lend a sense of dread to the song's serenity."
"It all comes together on "Weak Hands," the first track Westerman worked on with Salogni and his best since "Confirmation." It's an existential crisis of a song, musing on an unnamed figure's impending mortality: "Look at you running, my friend, to that desert in the sky... My dear, my hologram, my lord of mirrors/It's coming." The rudimentary synths of Your Hero Is Not Dead return, now treated like the ornate arrangements of Inbuilt Fault, a surreal wall of sound grounded by Ben Reed's overdriven bass."
Some of the wooziness of Westerman's early work remains. Intro "S. Machine" uses erratic synthetic horns that suggest an off-kilter direction between 22, a Million and an Animusic DVD. Subsequent songs become more soothing while gaining rhythmic and textural complexity from Warpaint and Kurt Vile drummer Stella Mozgawa. Mozgawa's layered drums and percussion capture restlessness on "Adriatic" and her dropped beats add dread to "Mosquito." Westerman's singing is clearer and often in a lower range, trading falsetto for tones closer to Stephen Merritt. "Weak Hands," produced with Salogni, combines rudimentary synths, ornate arrangements, and Ben Reed's overdriven bass into a fresh art-rock statement.
Read at Pitchfork
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