Sometimes as a metalhead or underground fan it is easy to forget that not everyone knows what you mean when you describe things in ever smaller concentric circles of references, sub-genres or in-jokes. It seems totally clear to me what I mean when I say that Elvenking‘s ‘Silence de Mort’ sounds like if Megadeth had colorful power melodic hooks and a singer who wasn’t such a born-again know it all douche, but some folks might stare blankly at that description and blink at oncoming traffic.
When the idea of cyberpunk emerged, long before the awesome recent anime or games, it was more an aesthetic of post-modernism meets future shock. Ghostly neon halations and industrial street fashion paired with a survivor’s instinct and a grim determination that the truth was just through the looking glass of the latest William Gibson book or through repurposed technology and archetypes, yadda yadda. The influence of this movement remains huge. As we speed up towards a perhaps inevitable singularity and riff onward on this voyage to infinity where you can’t forget to take your soul, D1G1T4L_DR1FT (Prosthetic Records) arrives to perhaps ask if the train has a conductor or if we are masters of our own fate, genders, reality…you name it.
Thotcrime are a very interesting band who feel like they are surfing the shifting afterbirth of a meme culture oil slick, the type of band, like Dillinger or Ghengis Tron, who come along every so often with enough audacity to become a signifier in time. Whether that morphs into novelty or becomes a genuine symbiosis between the band, the underground and the genres they pull from remains to be seen (scene?), but either way it is a lot of fun.
I wonder if they have heard the song with the same name by Neckbeard Deathcamp?
Thotcrime’s cybergrind, anti-pop, math rock maledictions are a maelstrom of smarts, sass and somehow also solid songwriting. They actually feel like the future, rather than punks styling themselves as futuristic. The band represent punk in the spirit of transgression through the bravery of mere existence, whereas some bands you might think of as punk because they are Stick To Your Guns and wrote a meaningful album about Hope and Social Change.
Aki McCullough, Diana Gruber, Carson Pace (The Callous Daoboys), Katie Davies join the party for one genrefuck of a macaroni bake off to end all time and space. The cover art looks like the inside of Pac-Man‘s toilet.
Listening to ‘trust://fall’ and the song’s brilliant nintendo-core meets emo meets cyber core is a thrill, an empowering anthem that reminds me of playing Metroid and learning Samus Aran was a girl. In the year of our Trans Hellraiser 2022, this record is another power up of massive proportions for anyone questioning things. All I know is I want the present zeitgeist to be this and not TikTok bullying. It makes sense this band is chest bursting out of Illinois with nothing to lose.
‘Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria’ explodes with a ferocity befitting The Letters Organize or old Minus if passed through The Siege Perilous in Marvel and paired with dance elements and hooks. ‘Critical Codependence’ is positively revelatory and feels like a digital bath with organic heart. The brevity of the songs creates an immediacy and a hunger for more. Everything is now. Nothing is permanent but every moment counts as we hover in infinite possibility or face the cliffs of rapid fire hopelessness but run up that hill anyway.
This band feels like they have skin in the game, even at their most artificial.
Buy the album here: https://lnk.to/Thotcrime
8 / 10
MORGAN Y. EVANS