The Paranoyds

Los Angeles befallen angels The Paranoyds lift the lid on the perceived gloss and sunlit sheen of their hometown to reveal the detritus and decay at the heart of what lies ‘a panopticon of surveillance’ in this supposed liberal heartland. As Pete Shelly uttered ‘Reality’s a dream’.

From Hollyweird’s malevolent bad dream-screen illusions to the incessant camera-lens ensnaring that pervades all walks and talks of existence, this album is welcome takedown of ‘online’ culture from a group unlikely to remember a pre-ahistorical, differently ‘connected>networked’ perception of ‘time’.

A long-player of crunchy riffage (the prog-rocking ‘Bear’), laconic ululating, girl-group harmonising and thrilling power-punk that throws down a gauntlet to passivity.

‘Face First’ is a systematic slating of the narcissistic, those that post their phoney images, the ‘self-as-commodity’ fetishising that belies irreducible insecurity and agitated anxiety; as the cyber call to action line ‘hair slicked back, better think fast’ nails succinctly. ‘Always on’ equals ‘faculties off’.

What are you actually purchasing when under the spell of consumerism’s trance? ‘Carnage bargain’ argues that further imposition of hierarchical norms and notions are the true costs, a continuation of the what Mark Fisher termed ‘capitalist realism’ for which there is (and never will be) any alternative. Shop ‘til you drop (dead).

‘Girlfriend degree’ has the sonic-air of the Sex Pistols’ subterranean menace with the womanifesto ‘Why be an adjunct, be a conjunct’: de(hu)manicpation has never been easier.

‘Hungry Sam’ echoes Elvis Costello’s ‘Pump it Up’ before morphing into gothic surf-schlock akin to The Fuzztones’s B-movie moog-droog aesthetic. The swirling dervish of the Wurlitzer permeates ‘Ratboy’ channelling The Doors’s Ray Manzarek’s mystical musical key-chops.

These are the voices of the heretics. These are the songs of the revolution against apathy. Listen up, join in and start to live a life less bored-inary.