So Tired
Drop Me
self-released
While there’s been no shortage of melodic and danceable post-punk making the rounds for the better part of the last ten years or so, the genre’s gnarlier, gritter sounds haven’t received nearly the same amount of attention. Enter Toronto’s So Tired, and their debut LP Drop Me, a caustic and often atonal effort that runs roughshod through the more polite and palatable iterations of modern darkwave in favour of good old fashioned ugly noise.
Composed by vocalist and bassist Miranda Armstrong, the general approach is to set up a heavy groove and then layer guitars over top, either chugging to reinforce the rhythm, or to tear off some harsh riffs and licks. It’s a simple enough approach with plenty of history (Big Black and the Blackouts are obvious points of comparison), but Armstrong, guitarist Jesse James Laderoute and drummer Jay Anderson find plenty of ways to keep things fresh across the record’s nine tracks. Where “Blind Faith” sets up a woozy, circling melody that increases in intensity with each pinched harmomic breakdown and shouted repetition of the chorus, “Counterfeit” dials in a industrial rock rhythm arrangement and keeps it strictly locked in, holding the center while Armstrong spews full-throated bile and exhaustion. And while there’s no real easy listening to be found, it’s also not a record without subtleties; check how the mechanized sound of “The Job” morphs from warning siren to tremelo-from-hell riffing, or how the crushed up drum break at the beginning of “Choke” continues to inform how the song rolls long after it’s been buried in layers of distorted bass and squalling noise.
Equally canny are how Armstrong’s vocals do a fair job in keeping the record from becoming a non-stop bludgeoning. On “Good Behaviour” she slides from sing-songy moaning to punchy and fast-moving growls, the switch-ups matching the song’s restless and unnerving mood. Alternately on the title track she phrases her vocals against the rhythm until the pre-chorus breakdown, her seasick lurch breaking into a full-on sprint. Particularly notable is her performance on grungy closer “Heavy Morning”, where she manages to sound both furious and exhausted in equal measure, as though just getting through the song is like pulling teeth. Like the rest of the record, it’s fascinatingly ugly and cacophonous, and witheringly unpleasant, all in the best possible way. Recommended.
