As it turns out, both life and death in plastic is fantastic
To start and lay all cards on the table, there has been one thing that has instilled in me a great, big old sense that 2024 will be a year of music that I’ll love, and that was in knowing that after five years, we were getting a new Glass Beach record. The LA-based many-different-types-of-rock outfit came onto the scene in 2019 with the exceptionally forward-thinking debut the first glass beach album, which found an initial rumble of reception within a very specific brand of underground weirdo overly-online music creeps (myself included there), who made it their mission to get everyone to hear this. And, suddenly, a good portion of everyone did, rightly so!
If this second album could come close to matching the fun, angsty musical from a parallel world energy which the first glass beach album conjured then we’re doing just great. In plastic death, we find so much more than just great.
A core of early 2000s pop-punk and prog is the launchpad for an immaculate rock opera, where each section of the many multi-movement tracks bring in a new sub-genre. Each track is a piecemeal quilt of ideas which seem to have individual clear threads of inspiration, chucked in a big old crockpot to make a quality quilty soup of form, flourish and angst (The benefits of consuming soup made of quilts in my own experience is that the threads can serve as inbuilt dental floss).
In our opener coelacanth we find a path trodden many times before structurally: A piece building up the layers over an initially simple piano riff, until a sprawling soundscape emerges. A great part of how this is executed is in the underlying pulse being left unspecified to begin with, allowing the guitar lines and drums to all introduce themselves by saying: “You were wrong for assuming that was the rhythm you were meant to be tapping your feet to. You miserable fool. You think you know of time signatures? You know nothing of time signatures”. That’s paraphrasing, they actually say it a lot nicer than that, and hold your hand as a gentle breeze turns into a hurricane.
Each new track brings in a new series of twists and turns from the breakneck motions, and the incredible contrasts of slip under the door’s muted pluckings against screamo vocals. All the better were the sheer melodrama moments of rare animal, which displays the band’s rare ability to bring in some math-rocky ideas into their tracks, while remaining in the service of the track itself. A rare thing to say about anything which even remotely smells of math-rock.
In all this excitement and twists and turns to this album, it should at least be advised that a degree of mental energy is required beforehand; the album is unashamed of allowing itself to be, at times, more of a challenging listen. This is not to be said that the album gives no opportunities of respite such as in guitar song, a far more stripped back track than all the rest, allowing for some soothing if this happens to be your chosen hangover album, for some reason.
As exciting and innovative the production is across the album instrumentally, the one point which strikes as being played just a little too safe is in the treatment of the vocals, though it should be made clear that in their present state they are performed with exceptional versatility and sincerity by lead-singer, j. However, there are fleeting few moments where these are produced to sound anything beyond exceptionally clean and untreated, or with just the safest drop of distortion. While this does keep a great anchoring-point throughout the album, an opportunity feels missed to not find time to colour the expressive performance of the vocal with some greater tonal experimentation. Reflecting on that department I am reminded of what I loved from the insane vocal-warping experiments of the exceptional Powders by Eartheater last year.
To bring it back round to a total highlight of the album we have the CIA, a crazy, off-the-grid adventure which finds a great lyrical framing of a surveillance state as a manipulative lover, analoguing the paranoia of internalised surveillance against the trappings of relationship gaslighting, where the ends both leave the victim seeking order from the one who traps them in confusion and terror. And the guitars sound real cool here! Bow ba bow bow!
In recent years, a real core of as-yet undefined somewhat proggy somewhat post-punk bands have popped up weirdly isolated around Brixton, London, in Black Midi, Squid, and Black Country New Road. And, while all have scratched a great itch for me and my love for the partnering of overly-complex composition and vocalists who enjoy yelling, it is refreshing to get what feels like a distinctly more American permutation of this; the entirely unwashable undercurrent of British cynicism and irony traded for sincerity from across the Atlantic, totalling to such a different thing that this comparison is almost pointless. But you won’t make me delete this, I’ve written it now.
I had dangerously high expectations for this album, the kind of high expectations that I should be wiser in my time to not set myself up for disappointment with anymore, but this album blew me away. Immaculate stuff. Next time you go to the beach, remember to throw a lot of broken glass into the sand in dedication of this band who have kicked the shit out of any sophomore slump notions.
Today, this gets a 9/10.