Whereas wholesome relationships are constructed on the mundane, the juice is within the intense, indulgent world of fantasy. “Your entanglement with pleasure/Was not about her/Catharsis of the center/Is a private affair,” fantasy of a damaged coronary heart’s Bailey Wollowitz sings within the closing moments of their bold debut, Feats of Engineering. Whereas heartbreak propels a lot of this document, it might be reductive to name it a breakup album. Wollowitz and bandmate Al Nardo topic the common expertise of misplaced like to a form of psychedelic processing. Small moments kaleidoscope over one another, like Saturdays brightened by breakfast with Tony Danza, or likelihood encounters on the subway fringed with classical fable. Feats of Engineering is an electrical dream state, the place experiments in prog, pop, indie, and shoegaze mix to underscore the devastating realization that, with time, all romantic recollections blur into fantasy.
fantasy of a damaged coronary heart is an art-pop two-piece from Brooklyn. The duo splits vocals, songwriting credit, and guitar duties, whereas Wollowitz provides some bass, piano, and drum programming. You’ll hear resemblances to Water From Your Eyes, Sloppy Jane, and This Is Lorelei—all teams Wollowitz and Nardo have every frolicked enjoying in. The 2 met at Bushwick’s basement venue Heck, then lower their tooth enjoying on the Glove: two eclectic DIY areas whose programming ran the gamut from gabber to stoner steel. Feats of Engineering is styled equally, plucking the poppiest of melodies as freely because it modifications time signatures. Assume Prefab Sprout’s Steve McQueen with its honey-sweet hooks and shifting track constructions, Microcastle-era Deerhunter with its driving downbeats and metronomic riffs. Notes, too, of Animal Collective’s cascading synthesizers and energetic vocal cacophony. They’ve the shameless ambition of an area band with the musical chops of prog-rock veterans, underscored with a wholesome aptitude for the theatrical.
Feats of Engineering refuses to choose a single set of types. Every track follows its personal logic because the document expands and contracts on a track-to-track foundation. The uptempo indie pop of “AFV” is sequenced simply earlier than the bubblegum falsettos and shiny synths of “Loss.” “Tapdance 2”—which morphs from storage rock right into a surf-rock-fringed tackle the Fall into anthemic guitars and cymbal crashes—offers solution to “Basilica,” a restrained ballad textured by Nardo’s higher register floating over chiming arpeggios that shine a melancholic gentle on their “holiest of hangovers.” Many lyrics provide slightly wink; many of the manufacturing is maximalist.
“Catharsis,” the practically seven-minute odyssey that closes the document, is the best instance of how fantasy of a damaged coronary heart makes use of the studio to enrich their songwriting. Wollowitz works their sincerest croon, waltzing over a twinkling piano. The narrator yearns to be launched from heartache but relents on the identical time, questioning if catharsis is what they need in spite of everything. The track’s core irony—a narrator caught in a loop of “enthusiastic about placing the woman that you just love on a cloud” towards a construction that throttles in the direction of its personal crescendo—encapsulates the best way fantasy builds rigidity between their lyrics and instrumentations, juxtaposing stasis with motion. Between Wollowitz’s grand, reverb-washed exhortations, a quick however scorching guitar solo, and the track’s last thrashing chords, “Catharsis” makes complete use of the band’s full arsenal, a becoming finale for his or her auspicious debut.
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