Strung Out
Agents Of The Underground

"Cuz we all play a part in history and we all end up just a memory."

This translates to average Joes playing dice with God, tired of being merely grains of sand on the ocean floors of time. Sullen black crosses brought down by the awareness of having no answers, but only a thousand horizons to gaze beyond. Everyday life as a work of art of inestimable uniqueness.

Damn, what the Strung Out have done to us.

Jason Cruz gets excited thinking about Andy Warhol and, inspired by Kerouac, immortalizes in enlightening beat verses the present and its psycho-institutional-social metastasis: vivid aberrations where convulsive lysergic escapes from reality pulse, romantic horror vacui, and plastic Jesus without a soul to sacrifice the body. The only existing remedy: abandon the path and follow your own rules, go off the grid conscious of the immense value of being unique, knowing that nothing can ever replace it. "Panta rei," said Heraclitus. And the Strung Out seem to know it very well.

The powerful rhythm section of Jordan Burns and Chris Aiken sets the pace for the masterful guitar explosions of Jake Kiley and Rob Ramos, which never translate into sterile onanism but shape an ordered and elegant chaos that addicts the listener by removing every point of reference; a new exile into oblivion (but far less self-referential and complacent) agitated by epileptic tapping and overdoses of harmonics, but also cradled by melodically expansive riffs, whistles, and onomatopoeias always blending into exceptional solutions.

What more can be said without slipping into the superfluous? Nothing, except that Strung Out keep the number of tracks contained (hooray...), finally hitting the target, no ifs, no buts. "Agents Of The Underground" is a shining example of complex simplicity, an excellent pop record with strong hardcore veins, dominated by the darting phrases of the Ramos-Kiley duo and the abrasive and captivating vocal lines of the most inspired Jason Cruz ever. Hard to choose between the apocalyptic assaults of "Black Crosses", the pentatonic delirium of "Jack Knife", or the climax with a Maiden-like peak of "Dead Spaces". "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes," said Andy Warhol. Strung Out will be famous for thirty-seven minutes. These. A masterpiece.