Review: The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline by Topiary Creatures released independently
How many unintentional hiatuses can one music blog go on?
As it stands, I don’t know how we here at AsterTracks find music anymore. We disappeared for a minute there, which we’ve probably explained in an earlier post. My previous primary source of information is currently a bit uninhabitable. I can tell you I discovered this record on a friend’s Instagram story, months ago, which is about the amount of backstory you need.
It’s difficult, at least in the context of this album, to pin Topiary Creatures to a mood, let alone a genre. Opening track “Trader Joe’s Frosted Mini-Wheats” starts off soft and beautifully and turns heavy in under a minute, not wrathful, but heavy. There are two vocalists present here and when the second comes in it's like a set change, the instrumentation present is as clear an image in my mind as if I were watching a play. When Elizabeth sings, every time, it’s as if time itself stops to listen. On “God is a Scared Kid at a Middle School Science Fair” they say;
If you sit still you can feel the Earth gathering dust in the garage.”
When the line comes up, I almost want to stop this band from playing and remind them I haven’t recovered from track one yet.
Doing the dishes alone with no podcast on,
Check my proverbial shoulder like that’s inherently wrong.
The imagery of a play on stage is the best way I can think to describe any of what’s going on, because it's so hard to envision a band playing any of this but so easy to picture it as an ever shifting range of emotions. The way “Trader Joe’s” goes into “God is a Scared Kid” feels like a total change of setting. A lot of this, however, is lent to the production, it’s easy to hear all of this and get swept in because it surrounds you. The percussion is everywhere, the synth is in the air as much as it’s being played. The way each vocal echoes is what takes you away to the realm of its very feeling.
Granted, as time goes on this band becomes less and less “huge stage production” and much more “band.” “Snakes in the Walls” is a much more traditional rock song with an infectious mood. When Topiary Creatures get heavy? It always catches you off guard. In the outro to “Fairfield County Abortion Clinic” they mix the atmospheric piano with some chugging guitars and you leave not sure how you ended up there but feeling better for the experience as a whole. The following “Home to Any Possibility” is a forty-two second hardcore song which offers total whiplash. In fact, each and every one of the shorter cuts on Tech Support Hotline are, in their own way, some of the best tracks on the record. “Dog” is an acoustic and synth track where we follow a canine around, it's very of this record. It also ends before overstaying its welcome and in a way feels incomplete, but not in a way where I feel I’m lost. “Office Ambiance #2” is an instrumental interlude which we almost put at the best song section because it has so many layers to it. The bass in the back, the sweeping keys, at no point does this band ever take a rest. The way the record is sequenced is excellent, it never feels like we lose momentum, but it also always feels natural.
The actual choice for best song is “Carsick on Insherin,” which is admittedly a deeply personal one. As I said, this was an accidental hiatus and the notes for this review were taken quite a while ago. What I can tell you, is the reason this blog went on break again is because I felt burnt out for quite a while in March and April. Not in a way I can truly pin down, but I didn’t want to do anything. All of my creative projects fell by the wayside, I stopped going to play my little card game every week, I sort of just napped. I don’t want to call it depression, as I do not think it would be accurate, what I can say is it was certainly a quiet period. I took a trip to the east coast to see some friends, lazed in my friend's house instead of my own and came back feeling raring to go. The closest I came to being able to explain how I was feeling was this song.
I need privacy but can’t stand to be alone.
I am always sort of anxious about giving high scores, not so much because I feel bands don’t deserve it, but because the feedback from readers has led me to believe I’m too generous. I’m over this, this blog is about my journey with music, to shrink myself over some commenter is to fail the intent of it all. When I look at the list of albums I’ve heard this year, it’s clear I favor this over most things. There’s a song I don’t love as much as the others, there’s a moment here and there where maybe another choice would have been the better one. None of these discredits the sheer emotion the entire thing puts me through.
Our score of The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline is 9/10.
Our favorite track is track 8, Carsick on Insherin.
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