Deep States

Most of us have lived some inner Tropical Fuck Storm over this past yearand a half. Even for a band that's made a career out of crafting songs attunedto political and social crisis, there was a new bleak in the air for Tropical FuckStorm, what the band calls "give-a-fuck fatigue." The third album from theavant-punk quad-aptly titled Deep States-mines familiar ground as well asnew cultural terrains, while digging deeper into the subjective state ofcontemporary panic. While not quite a protest album, Deep States comes complete with Q drops,nods to the January 6th Capitol Riot, a riff on pizzagate, MAGAs squaring offwith Antifas, waterboarded Martians, dangerous cults from Heaven's Gate toThe Shining Path and, not to be outdone, Romeo agents who bed us at nightonly to betray us by morning. We live in a world in which the bizarre hasbecome the normative, and Tropical Fuck Storm plumbs that paradox. Thatsaid, the band is far too wary of the self-importance attached to songs in thedidactic mode. "We make pop records," frontman Gareth Liddiard says, "thatdon't deny we're all in a bit of trouble here." What makes Tropical Fuck Storm so great is the intersection between theirdark but satiric storytelling and musical arrangements intent on pervertingreceived canons and wisdoms. These are songs as experiment, advancingand retreating at their own idiosyncratic, deeply unsettling pace. They hangon the slant beat and slide into jazzy, distortion-packed jams so tumultuousthey'd make Charlie Mingus proud. Musically, Deep States goes wherever itwants, riffing on pop, R&B, Talking Heads-style new wave, Delta blues, TomWaits, and some of the band's hip-hop favorites such as Woo-Tang Clan andMissy Elliot. Barriers aren't just broken, they seem to have completely fallenaway.In this present moment, parts of the world are opening up, or trying to. ButTropical Fuck Storm is here to remind us that many of our most urgentpolitical and social problems have been around a long time now. Same as itever was, as another genre bending band once sang. As the signs of thelatest crisis subside, and the dull ache of awareness with it, Deep States ishere to remind us that there is no foreseeable end to human folly, nor,fortunately, to the creativity that resists it. Over the past few years we've allheard the noise in our own heads - Tropical Fuck Storm has made music ofit.