Pop. 1280
The Horror

THE REVIEW

“Protein Overdose”

According to many vegetarian friends, an excess of protein could trigger fits of anger and general aggression. I have no idea if this assumption has any truth to it, but for sure after devouring 500g of Argentine Angus, I feel ready to talk to you about Pop. 1280, a new entity in the New York rock underworld.

There is no longer any need to state it, but once, as still today, albeit with ups and downs, NY is always a focal point and, if not a native soil, at least a home of adoption, for the best bands around. The Pop. 1280 are no exception, especially because they bring attention back to a hybrid genre like noise, in a musical-historical moment where if you don't randomly throw in an electronic drum or a plastic synth everywhere, you're not “cool.”

The paranoid-obsessive energy of Pop. 1280 brings to mind both the 90s noise-math bands and the forerunners Chrome, up to faint memories of Ministry from the late 80s. But if the latter flirted with the dominant metal of the time, our guys light a candle to the derailing violence of the Stooges, and the subsequent Flipper. Exemplary is the initial assault of “Burn The Worm”, the sound of a pack of drunks with severe metropolitan paranoia problems, the industrial hammer of “Nature Boy” or the cyberpunk mechanism of “Cyclotron”. Between gothic wave ancestries (“Beg Like Human”), almost Hardcore assaults (“West World”), splashes of Liars-like schizophrenia (“New Electronix”), the 4 guys warmly kick our asses until the climax of “Bodies In The Dunes”, where a robotic Moe Tucker dreams of electric sheep while a serial killer hides his victims at Coney Island.

So if you're annoyed by dull roommates who listen to (and dress like) the Vampire Weekend, you know what to do, let the echo of the Angus’s bellow possess you, put on this record and get to work.