Have a Nice Life’s “Deathconsciousness” (2008) is a distinctly internet age album.
It’s devastating and vast and empty; the mood and texture of the music matter as much, if not more than, the words that are being said on the songs. The blown-out, droning drums on “Bloodhail” completely contradict the calm opener “A Quick One Before the…” and swallow up the ephemeral guitars and vocals. It’s more than post-punk; it’s shoegaze and doom metal and tone poetry and drone wrapped in a particular perspective your parents could just never understand.
It’s now almost 20 years later. Enter the subject of today’s local band highlight: Mall Witch.
The comparisons to bands like Have a Nice Life aren’t hard to make. “Sunk Cost Fallacy,” Mall Witch’s newest single, might share an anxious, growling guitar tone or a DIY production style, but two decades of internet brainrot has done a number on things.
“Not Gone Yet,” another single from this year, switches gears a bit to a decayed and deliberately-paced sound more akin to Wednesday or Ethel Cain — and vocalist Levi Antoine really soars. The band’s demo tape features stripped production with much more room for vocals (tracks like “Collateral Damage” are super accessible), so for the chiller Mall Witch experience, I’d recommend staying on that side of things.
But the band, the production, and the scrap bits of audio laid into their other tracks tell an interesting story. Echoes of echoes ring throughout the Mall Witch discography, from commercials (“Count Chocula is Buying Real…”) to the screech of a dial-up modem that brings me back to places in my own childhood. The anxiety of a severe weather alert, the comforting synth of the early internet, the pitched-down voice of the devil. These pieces of ephemera, at least to me, evoke a kind of memory that seems to reach through the music at me.
In short, I can’t recommend it enough. I, for one, will be watching this band closely for a full-length release. It is exactly my kind of jam, and if you’re anything like me, it’s probably yours too.
You can find last week’s feature on Lost Henry here. Leave a comment on our Instagram or email me at ebloomfield@linknky.com with your suggestions for next week’s local band highlight!
