Sorry State 2013
Whatever Brains’ latest full-length album is aptly titled Whatever Brains (2013). None of the band’s three full-length albums have specific titles, and they each sound stylistically similar without sounding recycled or washed out.
The group’s new album maintains an out-of-control sound that somehow remains purposeful, inquisitive and emotional. Whatever Brains isn’t trying to be something it’s not. The band has found its niche, and in Whatever Brains (2013) the group works within it to make a politically charged electronic-garage-pop album.
Richard Ivey’s crybaby vocals slowly illuminate through discernable layers of screeching guitar, noisy high-hat, and deep, eerie synth. Whatever Brains (2013) is garage music at its finest.
The moods Whatever Brains sets on Whatever Brains (2013) are part of what continues to make them such a good band. It’s clear that they are comfortable with their sound, so they simply keep using it and meticulously tweaking it to their emotional advantage.
Like the band’s previous albums, Whatever Brains (2013) features electronic drums when it seeks a minimalist sound, deep synthesizer to set an ominous tone and spastic synth tones for a maniacal sound. None of the moods feel forced, and they seldom feel like recreations of their own work or others’.
Some songs stray slightly from Whatever Brains’ formula. “NPTO” sounds more like the soundtrack for Tales From The Crypt or any early-1990shorror film. It uses spooky, upbeat synth-pop in a key that sounds like murder.
More than anything, Whatever Brains (2013) appears to address the state of politics in North Carolina. It’s an appropriate topic for an album that sounds horrific at times and often conveys dread.
This notion is clear in the introductory song, “Uninhabitable Host.” Beyond the song title that caricatures life for many Triangle residents living in a GOP-led state, Ivey sings, “Some wormed their ways to the capital/Competent on roads well charted/But they sound as tired as we feel.”
That introduction sets the tone for a political album that feels betrayed, angry and sad. A majority of the lyrics refer to politics, but they are nevertheless mocking—another defining feature of Whatever Brains.
The lyrics are often so ambiguous that it isn’t worth figuring out what they mean, like in “Shimmylust,” when Ivey sings, “I begin our forgotten penchant for shedding layer upon layer of the unconstructive filth/Before now we were bound to our arrangements.”
Those lyrics probably mean something to the members of Whatever Brains, but they are almost indiscernible to an outsider.
The songs are nonetheless top-notch pieces of electronic garage-punk that deserve more acclaim—or at least more popularity—than they are given. Although they have been featured in Pitchfork, Whatever Brains is not a national-scale band, but they are undoubtedly good enough to be one.
Whatever Brains didn’t drastically change their style for this album, but the composition doesn’t feel recycled. Actually, it sounds like a perfect death march of beauty, and it’s welcoming to anyone who is willing to listen.