Cassette Review // Plastic Psalms "hostile architecture" (CULT LOVE SOUND TAPES)

 https://plasticpsalms.bandcamp.com/album/hostile-architecture

https://cultlovesoundtapes.bandcamp.com/album/hostile-architecture

Plastic Psalms are the type of band that I love because they take me back to a sound I first really heard in the very early 2000s and haven't quite heard as much of since.  Loud rock n roll, these songs push forward a little bit like Garrison and they are just distorted all around.  The percussion can feel more like punk/hardcore but at times this sound can also expand to show you how talented these musicians are.   I really enjoy the starts and stops that they do as well, which I think more artists need to do as a sort of controlled chaos.

At its heavier times, this cassette can remind me of a band such as Drowningman.  And as much as it reminds me of that sound, it reminds me of the time when I would go to shows and see bands like Drowningman and just that whole scene that doesn't quite exist like it onced used to here.  But hearing artists like Plastic Psalms gives me hope that we might be hearing more artists like this coming up, or at least this cassette is enough to make me feel like I am back there.

In the most mainstream way I can think of this reminds me of At-The-Drive-In.   In the most current way I can think of, I'd imagine Plastic Psalms playing shows with artists like Miracle Blood.  But, for me, that one artist who is full of both distortion and chaos that I always come back to is The Lot Six.  I just wish more artists these days had this same spark, this energy which seems to carry from being a heavy rock n roll band into something that isn't quite hardcore but in a world full of genres it might as well be.

If you happen to be wondering what this type of sound could be bringing forth as lyrics, well, I think one of the best examples, to set the tone for this cassette, doesn't come up until almost the end but I do enjoy the lyrics of "paradox of tolerance" which says: "man the guillotine / eat the oligarchs / deny, defend, depose / kill all ceos".   The revolution is coming whether you like it or not.  Put this cassette in, play it loud enough for all to hear and see who is on your side.  Such loud chaos can hopefully only bring us closer together.