Baghed - The Logic Project
Melodrama is in. Scowls adorn instagram feeds, post-ironic irony is plastered on social media, and carefully constructed aesthetic ensembles pop up everywhere you look. We live in an age of endless curation driven by parasocial obsession. The authentically fun has fallen by the wayside, replaced with ham-fisted empowerment messages and knowing winks that make you question if anybody really likes anything.
Baghed, luckily, doesn’t seem to have got the memo. Hailing from Reading, Pennsylvania, the four piece is as exuberant as they are absurd. Members swap instruments between songs, rants about haunted houses last anywhere between one to five minutes, and a recently-revoked (but never explained) bar ban seemingly has its own, dedicated time slot. Campiness defines them yet is delivered with such authenticity it’s hard to describe it as such. With The Logic Project, they work to translate their menagerie live show into six tracks of unadulterated, raucous fun.
“Johnny & Hon’s” kicks things off with a song about the oft touted, yet entirely confidential, bar ban. Produced for the push pit, this minute and a half long song is all killer-no filler as it pogos around its chorus with triumphant flare. “Cruisin’” follows in similar fashion. A mid-tempo bop complimented by a shoulder-shaking guitar line and sneaky synth, it brings back rock’n’roll’s love affair with going for a ride.
Picking up the pace, “Big ‘Ol Ego” moves things from the push pit to the mosh pit proper. Drenched in fuzz and delivered with all the sneer they can muster, Baghed blasts through this garage rock rager. “Black Clouds” and “Dienda” subsequently bring things back down with stoned out slacker rock swimming in sardonic wit. Unabashedly eclectic, they switch it up yet again as “Big Boy Tanks” and “Dig Bicks” brings things to a shouted (and faster) conclusion.
With The Logic Project, Baghed delivers seven tracks tailor made for spilling $2 - $5 beers in the pit. Fun to a point and vivacious to a T, there is nothing mopey, apathetic, or otherwise melodramatic in their arsenal. Rather, you can’t help but get the impression that Baghed is constantly throwing their own party and everyone is invited. Whether or not you choose to attend is entirely up to you; they’ll be getting banned and reinstated at bars regardless.
