Screensaver Decent Shapes LP
Great example here of how a cluster of established, recognizable modes, tics, and tropes can get fed into the sausage machine and come out as something pretty…original. In SCREENSAVER—who started off as a US/AUS split concern and by the point of this, their second album, seem to be specifically Melbourne-based—you can hear the rocking yearning of peak SLEATER-KINNEY, the blunt thunk of early ’80s disco punk, coldwave’s synth-licked gloom (or the modern update of BELGRADO), and high-rolling BANSHEES goth rock. Often some of all of those are happening at once, which is in itself a niche of sorts, but a bigger factor in all this is that SCREENSAVER are really adept songwriters. Hook-crafters, especially, but also their switches between minimal/maximal, clean/fuzzy, throw your hands up/cry into your cider…spend some time with Decent Shapes too, it harbours rewards.
