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9 songs in almost 40 minutes of mangle hardware synthesizer madness. Blown-out synth leads, echo-drenched vocals, and the incessant pounding of deep, deep bass evoking feelings of euphoria & rage simultaneously. "TIME VEHICLE EARTH" is coming.
Our take: After a previous album and a couple of singles, Time Vehicle Earth is the second album from St. Louis’s the Mall. The Mall has a strong Sorry State connection since mastermind Scott Plant played guitar in Broken Prayer, whose two albums we released in 2012 and 2015. If you are a fan of Broken Prayer, you’ll enjoy the Mall, though there are some big differences. One big one is that the mall is all synths and drum machines, but while the timbres of the instruments come from underground electronic music, the songs still feel like hardcore punk to me. The Mall’s songs are riff-based, only they play those riffs on synthesizers rather than guitar and bass. There’s also a punk energy to the Mall’s presentation, and the vocals and lyrics are totally hardcore, belting out subtle social critiques with a pained shout/howl. The lyrics are worth taking a gander at, with gems like this: “Like city birds forced to sing at night / I can’t get a word in edgewise / With my kind who all sleep at night / Exchanging courtesies / And compromise with my flesh while I sleep.” While so many records we carry at Sorry State seem all too aware of how and by whom they will be received, Time Vehicle Earth feels expressionistic, like it springs from somewhere deep and personal. It’s idiosyncratic as a result, but it also has a power and authenticity that hits you right away and stays with you through multiple listens.
Our take: After a previous album and a couple of singles, Time Vehicle Earth is the second album from St. Louis’s the Mall. The Mall has a strong Sorry State connection since mastermind Scott Plant played guitar in Broken Prayer, whose two albums we released in 2012 and 2015. If you are a fan of Broken Prayer, you’ll enjoy the Mall, though there are some big differences. One big one is that the mall is all synths and drum machines, but while the timbres of the instruments come from underground electronic music, the songs still feel like hardcore punk to me. The Mall’s songs are riff-based, only they play those riffs on synthesizers rather than guitar and bass. There’s also a punk energy to the Mall’s presentation, and the vocals and lyrics are totally hardcore, belting out subtle social critiques with a pained shout/howl. The lyrics are worth taking a gander at, with gems like this: “Like city birds forced to sing at night / I can’t get a word in edgewise / With my kind who all sleep at night / Exchanging courtesies / And compromise with my flesh while I sleep.” While so many records we carry at Sorry State seem all too aware of how and by whom they will be received, Time Vehicle Earth feels expressionistic, like it springs from somewhere deep and personal. It’s idiosyncratic as a result, but it also has a power and authenticity that hits you right away and stays with you through multiple listens.