Font Collage Rhythm and Absurdity Into the Dynamic, Dominant Strange Burden

Last time I spoke with Font, they were eager to put their work to tape, but they had a healthy amount of apprehension about capturing their precarious balancing act of chaos and harmony in a recording. The quintet of vocalist/bandleader Thom Wadhill, guitarist/sampling savant Anthony Lawrence, bassist Roman Parnell and dual percussionists Jack Owens and Logan Wagner have been steadily gaining a cult following in Austin, Texas with their dynamic, energy-packed performances and unique, unrestrained sound. After two years of having only one recorded track to their name, Font have finally bottled their sonic lightning into Strange Burden—a seven-track debut that boasts a skillful balance between intellectual sophistication and unbound creativity.

In pure Talking Heads fashion, rhythm and absurdity drive every aspect of Strange Burden. Font pair unlikely things together in a collage of delightful musical textures that waltz together in harmonious glee—as if they are reaching through the stereo with a guiding hand and asking you to dance. And, with beats like these, you can’t help but move. Even when operating through a multitude of moving parts, each sound still stands strongly on its own. In a band with two drummers, hefty bass, dynamic sampling and a dominant lead vocal, there stands the possibility of swallowing themselves whole, yet throughout each track, Font walk the fine line with unmitigated grace.

They blast us into their supersonic landscape with the whooshing atmospheric sampling intro of “Golden Calf,” which bursts into a screeching medley of percussion from Owens and Wagner—matched only in energy with the formidable yell from Wadhill. The track also mixes in a more melodic vocal from Wadhill, who traditionally strikes with his usual strained, shouty presence. “Golden Calf” exists as a mirror of society’s fear of the unknown—how it clamors for an intangible deity to represent the virtue of the world yet falls victim to worshiping the wrong powers. In the Bible, worship of the “Golden Calf” is an act of apostasy—meaning the very thing that drives the fear to worship will be the people’s undoing after all. It’s a heady opener to Strange Burden, an album that fits in line with a band set on sitting outside of any generic boxes.

So much of what drives Font is feeling. Their name, a derivative of the archaic term for fountain, is the ideal encapsulation of the free-flowing impulses Wadhill follows as he writes the band’s unrestrained poetic lyrics, letting the subconscious take hold and guide rather than laboring over perfection. That ethos is alive in the lyricism and spirit of “Hey Kekulé,” as the track opens with a declaration: “I’m screaming like a baby / I’m crying like a horse / Eternity is composed of me.” Kekulé is a reference to the German organic chemist Friedrich August Kekulé and, later, Cormac McCarthy’s 2017 essay, “The Kekulé Problem”—the latter of which discusses the concept of the subconscious and its resistance to speak to us, an issue Wadhill has seemingly conquered on Strange Burden. The elaborate arrangement centers Wadill’s wail at the center of its melodic mayhem. Layered keyboard arrangements are masterfully mixed with thundering drums and a Font staple: some killer cowbell.

“Looking at Engines” softens the explosive opening of the album with a mysterious energy before opening up into a pop-influenced banger. Font continue the cerebral messaging even in this airier track by discussing how humans are the only primates who can respond to music and how others prefer silence. The track begins cacophonously until it gives way to a shimmering, bubbly melody as Wadhill asserts our species’ cognitive complexity as a “strange burden.” I’d say that our connection to music is one of humanity’s more sublime afflictions, and with the delicate care given to each track on Strange Burden, I’d wager Font would agree, too.