Blood – Loving You Backwards
Ramp Local
There’s something terrifying about Blood’s debut album, Loving You Backwards.
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Intimacy is an earth-churning metamorphosis; kids are killing themselves by trying to find sanity and meaning in their careers; we dissociate and watch our country and world’s collapse on TV like a movie; and pleasure is a means to enforce oppressive power. Tim O’Brien’s poetically opaque lyrics fester in a collection of pop-tinged punk tracks that sit on the alt-rock faultline—electric but primed to combust like an overheated loose wire.
The Philly-via-Austin group have cracked their own formula for suspenseful songs with a magnetic false sense of security. Take the new album’s penultimate track, “Spaced Out,” where winding guitars reminiscent of the Strokes curdle into turbulent, off-kilter cries and vocals eerily shift in and out of focus. Even while it’s strikingly unclear if he’s singing from his own perspective or another’s, O’Brien’s lyrics feel both like a poignant critique of upcoming generations and the retelling of a cloudy tragedy. “These children make me sicker than they think they are themselves / Prematurely dead before the flock,” he sings. “Couldn’t stand to see his name with others on an obit page.” It’s grief-driven catharsis keeping you on the edge of your seat.
While that lurking instability can be thrilling, it can also be Love You Backwards’ weakness. The album’s shortest track, “Where Ya,” a foggy psychedelic breather that recalls Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms, feels awkwardly placed following the sensual, nearly tear-jerking high of “Bare.” Still, Loving You Backwards will continually draw you back in because of its confounding nature.
This generation of Blood isn’t unafraid to confront societal shame, religiously baked norms, or any uncomfortable circumstance attached to seeking connection hyper-aware of the human condition. GRADE: B-
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