Activity’s Spirit in the Room Grapples with Endless Suffering

I’m not sure I believe in ghosts. I can’t say I’ve ever consciously encountered one, and I think everyday life feels easier to swallow without the possibility of an afterlife. But listening to Activity is how I imagine a visit from the ghost of a loved one must feel. It’s moments like these that the edges of fear and comfort are blurred, and Brooklyn-based art rock quartet Activity also thrive in this realm.

Activity’s fear factor is due in part to the hair-raising, soft-spoken coo of lead vocalist Travis Johnson, which is prettier and more artful than a freaky nu-metal whisper, but no less unsettling. His filmy voice—half-sung, half-spoken—cuts through the mix, murmuring with the mysterious allure of a film noir character. The band’s records could also be likened to a noir—or the works of Kafka, one of noir’s similarly oppressive forebears. Their eerie rustlings evoke images of empty city streets at night, and their lyrics explore world-weary themes of alienation, paranoia, anxiety and disillusionment. Plus, there’s a bleakness lurking within their rickety melodies, unnerving textures and languorous percussive chug. But the reason these sounds and images resonate so deeply is that there’s also beauty within. Their meditative synths and enveloping vocals have a delightfully hypnagogic quality, and their lyrics—albeit steeped in different varieties of personal and societal torment—are stirringly poetic.

Their 2020 debut album Unmask Whoever was filled with abstract images—many of them vessels for deep-set anxieties and fears, like “a crashing jet in the shape of a man” on “In Motion”—as well as more concrete characters that represent the burden of human fallibility, like drunk ex-cops (“The Heartbeats”), bedside guardian angels (“Looming”) and a family reeling from the crime of one of their own (“Nude Prince”). Activity’s thoughtfully impressionistic lines are enriching to read on their own, and they also feel more true to the experience of disorienting unease than cogent confessions. But their music still feels revelatory, particularly on a track like “Earth Angel,” where Johnson mutters amidst whooshing clamor, “Gutted and stuffed with feathers / I am like the things I push away.”

Stylistically, Activity are satisfyingly fickle. Because their music hinges on sonic and emotional dualities, you almost have to describe it with oxymorons like “tender noise rock” and “no wave-y pop.” Their songs contain flashes of everything from krautrock and folk to trip-hop and industrial music, but they find a way to cultivate a cohesive sound world all their own. Activity conjure the atmospheric mope of Autolux and Blonde Redhead, as well as the hypnotic propulsion of Women and Can, and you can tell from their adept use of texture and rhythm that this isn’t their first rodeo—Activity’s members have also played in guitar-based groups like Grooms and Russian Baths.

With their second full-length Spirit in the Room, they’ve concocted another warm yet fearsome fever dream. Through every harsh drum machine pound and synth twinkle, Spirit in the Room attempts to find meaning in a life ravaged by chilling ruthlessness but still gasping for air, rife with possibility. The album wrestles with mortality, grief, religion and more specifically, the passing of Johnson’s mother and illness of his father. In the album’s final line, Johnson sings in a hushed, resigned voice, “Mother, come back to me,” and on the penultimate “I Saw His Eyes,” Johnson is haunted by images of his father, who, at one point, was unrecognizable after receiving cancer treatments: “I saw his eyes in magazines … I saw his teeth in TV screens.” There’s also a tribute to the late David Berman on “Heaven Chords” —penned following his death in 2019—in which Johnson purrs, “You formed a bridge from floor to sky / Swaying in a rented room,” as well as other stark images of death, like a request for the termination of life support on “I Like What You Like” and a halo spray painted onto a horse head on “Cloud Come Here.”