Super Always - Bong Eater

Super Always is mesmerizing. Chaotic, abrasive, and entirely disconcerting, I was taken with their music as soon as a video of them playing drifted across my feed. There are elements of obvious comparisons such as The Locust and An Albatross, but even those feel reductive when trying to capture the essence of their sound. 

Bong Eater, their debut (and only) album, instead uses these influences as a springboard to delve deeper into more manic, avant garde spaces. The rhythm section is often thumping, regular, and repetitive until it isn’t; melodies delivered via synth are similarly handled with reckless abandon. This constant ebb and flow between standardization and chaos, often switching between the two at breakneck speed, feels like a perversion of jazz standards and their inevitable player-based permutations. There’s always something familiar there, yet you can never quite place your finger on just what it is.

For those hunting for something out of left field, Super Always will scratch that itch and then some.