4 out of 5

Label: Deathbomb Arc

Produced by: Seth Manchester

Iterating on his Arab on Radar caterwaul and tendency toward repetitious caucophony in his musical ventures, it took Eric Paul several different projects to finally divorce himself of, essentially, rewriting the AoR template with Psychic Graveyard’s second album: Bluebird Vacation.

There are a couple other “firsts” that feel indicative of this move: shifting to noise / indie hip-hop label Deathbomb Arc puts Paul’s latest band in the company of a particular breed of outsiders who definitely ping off the artistry and no-waveness of previous labels like Skin Graft and 31G, but the label also has a kind of performative bravado to it that oddly encourages a bit more structure and maybe seriousness. Like – your work is now being checked.

Also, we find the group teaming up with Seth Manchester, whose vast experience with a certain spike of the hardcore and noise club has the same mix I’m mentioning above: assaultive, but controlled.

Thus: we can call this Paul’s / Psychic Graveyard’s first “mature” album, when the lyrics append the writer’s usual paranoias and paraphilia subject matter with more personal narratives; with a sense of looking-outward that hasn’t much been featured before. And the music crunches and herky-jerks in the sweaty dancefloor vibe of Chinese Stars and the PG stuff we’ve heard thus far, but begins to embrace a whole other world of effects, with the ad copy proudly mentioning how little of guitars there are here. While that doesn’t have to mean anything in itself (plenty of bands are guitarless….), if you’re familiar with that AoR / Paul sound, it’s definitely noteworthy. And from the first track on, we hear how the high pitched whine of that element has been replaced by explosive statics and other effects. This is a dark, mean sound.

And it’s impressive across the board. Paul keeps a straight face during these tellings, and doesn’t veer into his usual stash of erection references, while sticking to body horror as a framing go-to. However, it’s in service of a study of mental health: a constant assessment and reassessment of how he ended up here, told in little clips of birthday parties and metaphors about antennae. The music, as mentioned, is pretty devastating – still danceable, but there’s really an industrial edge to this, truly veering on NiN territory at points.

Of course, by going a bit more mature, it also brings more focus to that quality: some songs tell a complete story, and some don’t. Some fit into an overall theme via their repetition, but some feel limited by it. In other words, Paul – and his group – hasn’t necessarily changed his style of composing, just the pieces going into.

On followup Veins Feel Strange, we get a step beyond this, where the absurd can be warped back into the narrative, balancing out these tendencies with PG’s evolved approach. But Bluebird Vacation is perhaps more directly impactful if you’ve been following along, and is quite a shocking leap forward in a career of genre-bursting releases.