Album Review: Paradise by Pop. 1280

Pop. 1280 aren’t shy about their love for generic conventions, from the witty and nasty noir of their namesake to Cronenbergian body-horror lyrical material to consistent references to '70s speculative fiction. It is the dystopian landscape where these worlds intersect that makes this Brooklyn group's industrial noise-rock click and hum; it is vital in its grimness.

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Human progress is out. Techno-fetishistic consumerism is in. This, at least, is the crux of Pop. 1280’s third album, Paradise, which doesn’t so much as celebrate the possibility of utopia as despair at its increasing implausibility. It witnesses the Brooklyn quartet as they advance their self ….

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The band Pop. 1280 named themselves after a book by infamous pulp novelist Jim Thompson, in which the dimwitted sheriff of a small Southern town unwittingly discovers his capacity for corruption and bloodshed. While their music suggests they exist in some otherworldly universe rather than the American Southwest, Pop. 1280's third full-length album, 2016's Paradise, sure sounds like the soundtrack to a story full of violence, betrayal, and bad karma.

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“War is god.” These are the words uttered by Judge Holden when he discusses the control of war in a mere card game within Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Holden takes his hand through McCarthy’s page and befalls instills in the writer, making the author create a man set on removing the man-made moral faculties that pursue the strong. A similar atmosphere of barren wastes—in the physical and moral sense—has been melded by New York City’s Pop.

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In spite of the usual lull of a new year, this January, in particular, was jam-packed with loads of exciting releases that cover a whole gamut of styles and attitudes. Sometimes we just don't have the time and resources to cover them all, but that doesn't mean we're always listening. Below are some ….

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