From Cool Ghouls to New Country Sounds, making room for JOY and a brief stint with Honey Blazer in between, Denver-via-SF mainstay Ryan Wong returns to the fore with his most ambitious project yet, Supreme Joy’s 410,757,864,530 Dead Carps. According to Wong himself, this record has “been a long time coming,” his pride-and-joy (pun not intended) group settling into a more or less concrete lineup within the past year and change. Throughout Supreme Joy’s (beautifully) inaccessibly titled sophomore LP, Wong and his trusty companions take us on a one-of-a-kind journey, weaving through bursts of post-punk shrapnel and dreamlike ambient passages to explore the “ever-changing American identity, class warfare, and Debord’s spectacle.”
The record opens with a foreboding introduction before plunging into the rousing “Into the Mirror,” recalling early Sonic Youth and This Heat at their most elemental. “Ottawa” offers a slight reprieve, falling into something sounding slightly more traditional if not for its punctuated chorus. The centerpiece of the record, however, is side B opener “Or Does It Explode?” Wong implores the listener for an answer with his abstract inquiry—made all the more uneasy with his decidedly flat, unaffected vocal delivery—while the band whips up a maelstrom of din behind him, 12-string electric guitars colliding with a motorik beat, the rhythm section finally succumbing to their onslaught in a careening mess of sound.
Ryan Wong appears to possess a casual mastery of any genre he tries, be it psychedelic pop, honest-to-goodness country, or experimental rock. With 410,757,864,530 Dead Carps, he has shown that he can blend them every bit as effectively, posing thought-provoking questions with his oft-oblique lyrics just as well. With a record this engaging, I only find myself wishing it were longer, but I also know that Wong is not keen to overplay his hand, and I’m almost certain he’s got more tricks up his sleeve that he’s simply saving for later. There’s still plenty to catch up with here.
Written by Jacob Simons
