Sometimes life feels like it is on a collision course: Everything is perfect, you are speeding and swerving through it, riding high on waves of adrenaline, with the wind in your face and music blasting in your ears. But at the back of your head, you have this vague knowledge that any minute now, a wall of bricks will appear and all of this will abruptly end. Or, a giant wave will sweep you under and everything will go quiet.
That is what DEBT SOUNDS by The Serfers feels like to me. The title is especially appropriate because the project captures the feeling of being on borrowed time. You can feel the debt piling up and the moment of remittance approaching.
The album opens with “Mellow”, a track laced with murky instrumentation and Matt Harris’s constrained voice dragging to match the lyrical content of the song in the beginning. A bit more than halfway in, it almost turns into a punk anthem: The drums kick in, and the uncertainty (and accompanying frustration) takes the front seat.
“Damaged III” explores the themes of self-destruction as a fuel for creativity, and has an amazing instrumental interlude with the melodica chiming into the drums. “Conspiracy”, on the other hand, opens with dirty guitars and builds up to perhaps the catchiest chorus on the album, which also happens to be just one word (the title). Matt’s delivery of it is expansive and immaculate.
Leaning into the fast-paced sections on the album, “Nu Wave” launches into a run. Scattered within it are little pockets of breath as the song skids to the end. “Violins” is perhaps my favorite song on the album: It is a classic rock song that has all the groove and energy to get you playing an air guitar.
No time is wasted as they quickly get into “Bad Blood”, which is dripping with accusation and a distinctly mature anger as Harris sings, “You keep on kicking me when I’m down.” The role of instruments here in communicating the anger – as the guitar, the drums and perhaps the melodica engage in a heated back and forth – especially stood out to me.
In the next track, “Loose Control”, Harris gets into your face right at the start and does not let you look away. The second half of this song is characterized by jangly guitars played over a steady rhythm. The track holds you tight by your shoulders and then abruptly lets you go.
“Debt Sounds” – the title track – builds into a dense wall of sound and then fades out in a tail of static-like sounds. On “Negative FX”, they plunge into the pessimism of a world falling apart where “nothing matters, and nothing happens anymore”. The album ends with “Welcome Home”, on which the vocal delivery is like someone telling you a mythical story, complete with inflections of the voice. Surprisingly, I can imagine myself falling asleep as this song plays in the background.
The guitar is perhaps my favorite element on the album; it is comfort disguised as jagged, sometimes distorted progressions. Matt’s voice itself is either unhurried or rushing in all the right places. The elasticity in his voice is remarkable, from drawling and world-weary to breathless urgency, and he covers an impressive vocal range throughout the record. The one thing that is constant in DEBT SOUNDS is movement: The songs drag, lurch, brake, accelerate, and rarely settle into one rhythmic register for long.
Throughout the album, The Serfers manage to keep you on your toes, bracing for impact. It is the feeling of being on a roller coaster that changes pace and height, and along with it, so does your body’s reaction. Every song runs for just the right duration and delivers the impact that it’s supposed to. And I think that the album art perfectly complements the sonic range that is encapsulated in this project. One of the more interesting projects I have heard this year; this is definitely something I would keep coming back to!
Take a listen to “Mellow” from DEBT SOUNDS below.
Written by Riya
