Pickpocket
Photo Cred 📸: @neutralshrimphotel
This week's New Music Monday finds us returning to Ohio. The scene of the often overlooked state has been something to behold in recent years and one band that's really blown us away is Columbus’ own Pickpocket. Their debut album “All These Things We Thought We Invented”, has all the makings of another sonic gem refusing to be ignored.
Album opener “New Rome” rips and shreds, winding buzzsaw guitars duel against coagulated basslines and shrieked shouts of our empires end. The exultant nature of this track feels like a feat of Caligulan feast hallmarked with Nero’s fiddling as the anxious energy overwhelmingly kicks the album off on an aggressive note.
The quiet affectation that opens of “Weather Vein”, with its beleaguered little riff and strained vocal howl evolves into sharp caterwauls of experimental punk and screamo fusion. Brazen guitars and explosive drums kick in as yells transform into screams and the circling melody of the track rings eerily familiar of something off a City of Caterpillar B-side.
“On Scrapyards” has all the atmospheric and subdued horror of a Chat Pile song, but turns all of the fever pitched existential dread into a profound dead eyed stare of consumerism and climate anxiety. The expressive desired to be buried under miles and miles of junk and garbage are delivered in a lilting deadpan, I’ve decided / I want to be buried / Under fifty miles of trash / Far away from the sky / Away from the sun / Deposited into scraps of steel / Sediment and with oils and fossils when suddenly the looping melancholy riffs roars to life amongst clattering cymbals and hoarsely drummed toms as a single voice shrieks ‘Let it bury me’. Each stanza of this track punches and laments in such pained apathy that even against its own intentions, the earnestness and fear shines through.
Pickpocket reminds me of Jimmy Eat World if they were violently possessed by the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson channeling the haunting echoes of Frail Body, the meandering experimentation of Gospel and the raucous punk nature of Cloudmouth. The eight songs spanning “All These Things We Thought We Had Invented” come together to make a singular push of frantic energy, wherein Pickpocket have captured entire realms of angst and thought all into sparse lyricism, tautly spread out interludes and hellacious shrieking and shouting. We greatly look forward to what the future holds for Pickpocket and what they may have for us next.
“All These Things We Thought We Had Invented” is available on your favorite streaming platforms now.
Checkout the album on Spotify here: Pickpocket
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
07/31/23
