Takes by the Ocean: Chamber-Pop for Coat Checkers (& Hyperpop for Satan)

FUCK U PLAYBOI CARTI I WISH U WERE DEATH GRIPS BUT UR NOT!! <3

The Ex (Photo by Susana Martens)

YES

The Ex, If Your Mirror Breaks

When your Steve Albini tribute kicks off with a Bo Diddley beat, you’re doing it right. “Beat Beat Drums” (hell yes) sets up the intense vamp, and “Spider and Fly” quiddles ominously betwixt Call the Doctor and Trout Mask Replica. That’s your spectrum of color. Like any avant-punks worth their drone of course they frequently evoke Sonic Youth, especially Lee Ranaldo’s recited, towering “NYC Ghosts and Flowers.” But the Ex is more relentless; besides the fact they’re 45 years old where SY topped out at 30, the thousand cuts of their guitars and circular drum incantations have no forgiving rise and fall. They occasionally build a rousing density, as on the perfect closer “Great” from their first LP since COVID, but even when Katherina Bornefield sings they never sweeten. So they sound like protest and damnation at the same time when they chant “loss, loss, loss.” This is noise-rock where nothing is accidental and every strike of the instrument matters. Get out the vote.