It might be true, the saying that you turn into what you love. The Loud Bangs then, love a lot of things. On paper, what they plan to execute doesn’t work at all. It is a mishmash of many different genres that don’t belong even in the same water. That’s where their musicality comes in. Stray Honey is to shut people like me up. By the end of this rave, it works.

They open the track with Electroprize. With the washed out background, you might expect someone to croon about their lovelorn era of romance. With distorted guitar chugs, they break that expectation, and the silence. You’re hooked to this post-grunge instrumental dystopia layered with heavy reverb on the vocals. Welcome to the first wisp of the daze.

Sex Complex has a club song core to it. Though you’d think that the flow is maintained by just electronic elements, they amalgamate in different proportions. It is a dreamy result, sounds that flow into each other with an ease. The jangly distortion of the guitar unites more than you think it would.

A fusion supreme

We Want to Be Alright has some fantastic sound production. It phases between the left and right, creating something that is a stereo dream. You’re lost in the alt-shoegaze aspect of this sound. As the crisp acoustic cuts through the Northern Lights of sound, you settle in expectations. Layers condense into creating this salad of sound, fresh and diverse, yet amicably edible. This Is a Japanese Robot has the alt-rock anticipation you want. It derives from decades of digital variation in rock, creating its own niche with surprising turns. With the vocals hidden way behind in the distance, they are merely cameos in a much larger movie. There is a joy in the disorientation they depict so well with their music-a harmony you wouldn’t typically be able to find. 

Closing with Bell Gardens, the dream overflows into another dimension. You might be resting on the shoulders of a New Wave movement, but sandwiched between other styles. It is almost meditative in its process, and refreshingly original. Enjoy it live or as this recording, you can imagine the psychedelia strike with only how easily it forms for The Loud Bangs. The only loud bangs till now have been the pleasant shifts of change. A surreal album by a band that isn’t afraid to test the envelope. 

It might be a long shot, but I could place many of these in Requiem for A Dream. Not only a brilliant depiction, but the opening up of different forays in sound asks for thorough experimentation. It is a solid, fruitful effort by a collective you might never doubt again. Listen to their album Salvation Memories and follow them as well for more music like this: