Salad Boys: This Is Glue

All of us experience the less than pleasant sensations of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty, sensations that seem to become more and more normalized as we age. There’s the ever-present tick of the clock as you reach the end of your twenties, the dull ache of potential not realized as your thirties pass by in a blur. And so it goes until the existential dread of your impending mortality shrinks to almost a comfort, the only certainty in a most uncertain world.

Sound like one gigantic bummer? It is! But life also has ways of letting you temporarily forget that it’s one big shitshow, ultimately balancing things out to a bearable normality. If I said these are thoughts I had after listening to This is Glue, the sophomore album from New Zealand outfit Salad Boys, you might imagine it to sound like one gigantic bummer. But much like life, This Is Glue cushions the blow of frontman Joe Sampson’s less-than-cheery observations within fuzzed-out, lo-fi garage guitars, the sounds of jangling indie-pop circa 1987 and Sampson’s own calm-cool-collected vocals.

Recorded at Sampson’s home studio, the lo-fi production suits the mood, recalling the melancholy charm of indie acts like The Chills and The Bats. “Blown Up” kicks things off with Krautrock rhythm and an aggressive flurry of guitars, as Sampson laments the pressure to constantly “concentrate and utilize our time.” “I’m useless to to myself and doomed to follow/Someone else,” he sings on “Psych Slasher,” the punk energy and triumphant vocals somehow turning all that angst into a good time. “Scenic Route To Nowhere” takes things in a Parquet Courts direction, the angular guitar lines emphasizing Sampson’s mention of “anxiety,” “choking” and “stumbling.”