This week’s feature album is Tropical Fuck Storm's third LP Deep States.
Following on from their 2018 and 2019 albums, A Laughing Death in Meatspace and Braindrops, TFS took a break from releasing in 2020 with frontman Gareth Liddiard (on not writing new songs for the first six months of the global shutdown) saying “why would I? Everything seemed pointless.” Even for a band that’s made a career out of crafting songs attuned to political and social crises, 2020 was too much.
Thankfully for us, TFS got back in the musical mood. On Deep States, TFS dig deep into the subjective state of contemporary panic. The album comes complete with Q drops, nods to the January 6th Capitol Riot, a riff on pizzagate, MAGAs squaring off with Antifas, waterboarded Martians, dangerous cults from Heaven’s Gate to The Shining Path and, not to be outdone, Romeo agents who bed us at night only to betray us by morning.
On track ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ Jesus comes back from the grave to warn humankind. ‘Blue Beam Baby’ offers a pining homage to Ashli Babbitt, the woman shot as she tried to breach the U.S. Capitol, her MAGA heart warped by that Blue Beam conspiracy theory. ‘New Romeo Agent’ is at once spooky, sweetly sad, and off kilter. But this album must be heard from start to finish to do it true justice. The album tells a collective story reminding 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 all heard the noise in our own heads. Tropical Fuck Storm has made music of it.
Deep States is out August 20. Pre-order yourself a copy now. PBS members can tune in to the station all week for a chance to win a copy of the album.
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING
Vanishing Twin - 'Phase One Million'
HTRK - 'Kiss Kiss and Rhinestones'
Ngaiire - 'Him'
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Emile Mosseri - 'Log In Your Fire'
Session Victim - 'The City'
Gareth Skinner - 'Here U R Where R U'
Loose Sutures - 'Animal House'
Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - 'Back to Oz'
The Dacios - 'Said The Beginning'
