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These songs were conceived and recorded during the lockdowns in 2020-21 by a 4 friends from Minneapolis and NYC.
Describing songs over and phone and sending recordings back and forth was a means of maintaining connections through those dark times and also a weirdly digital and disconnected way to write music.
These songs capture both those aspects, while offering a critique of the social disconnection and technological coercion that grew out of those times.
Here they are finished and pressed to vinyl for the first time.
"A group of old friends split between Minneapolis and NYC- songs that came from the ashes of Desolate Records OGs ZERO. Music fleshed out deep in the pandemic by the Mpls contingent as a way to stay sane during the covid winter. Similar to ZERO, the backbone of the songs is the raging melodic style of Death Side mixed with other Japanese classics like Gastunk, but fused with a classic crusty style indigenous to the Twin Cities. Lyrics written by Will show a love for science fiction, and how the modern concerns of a socially aware punk in 2025 reflect the fictional dystopias presented in stories by the masters such as William Gibson or Philip K Dick. Self recorded by Will on a digital 8-track, the amateur recording mixed with Sean’s grandiose melodies and song structures puts the music into a strange category- at once old school and raw while simultaneously complex and nuanced. " - Digital Evil
Packaged with a color poster by Digital Evil.
Our take: Desolate Records brings us this studio project by folks from the defunct Minneapolis band Zero, whose records were some of the earliest releases on Desolate. According to the label’s description, these recordings were completed remotely during the pandemic, as members of Burning Chrome were split between Minneapolis and New York, and in-person jamming was impossible. They mention describing songs over the phone and sending recordings back and forth, which is a wild way to compose and record, especially for music like this that typically lives and dies by a band’s ability to create a roaring, locked-in sound. The recording and mix are consequently a bit odd-sounding, with the drums having a different tone from the rest of the instruments and the rhythm guitar quite low in the mix. The songs themselves frequently invoke Death Side’s broad gestures with their soaring guitar leads and commanding vocals, but the recording pulls in a different direction, with an off-balance, introverted feel. The result is a record that doesn’t bowl you over instantly, but instead intrigues you subtly, and listening can feel like trying to make out an image through frosted glass. This self-titled EP is a strange record, but it’s so unique that if you dig it, you won’t be able to find anything that hits quite the same.