The shoegazey new album embraces all feelings, including boredom.
Sometimes there’s a light at the end of the banal. Sometimes, everyone feels lazy, angry, nervous, bored, empty—and, for Hypoluxo, on their latest extended play Taste Buds, “nothing’s crazy” about feeling anything. Most of the tracks on the record occupy these commonplace spaces of stasis but channel the boredom typically found therein into a restlessness whose chiming indie guitar and gently driving bass and drum lines propel the Brooklyn four-piece into a sonic territory just kinetic enough to be addictive—something so addictive that it feels edible if not appetizing. The charming baritone lyricism and driving indie guitar condense into something to be gnawed, something that can be enjoyed ambiently on repeat but whose audial nuances—from the twinkling horn on “Nevada” to the sputtering and dovetailing melodies on “Sometimes”—reward undivided attention to the artistry couched beneath common places and feelings that Hypoluxo indulge. Taste Buds makes for gourmet indie rock, and it’s delicious.
Taste Buds is out August 4. Hypoluxo play Alphaville on September 15 with Varsity.