public

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Brighten Your Miserable Day With PlasticBag FaceMask’s “Put a Light In a Cloud”

The last project I wrote for high school music a decade and a half ago was titled “Spandex Death Mask”. It was a terrible Dillinger rip that had trombones and

3 years ago

The last project I wrote for high school music a decade and a half ago was titled “Spandex Death Mask”. It was a terrible Dillinger rip that had trombones and sax runs (Ire Works had just come out, give me a break) and was just really shit. This brand new single from Fresno’s PlasticBag FaceMask – though they may share similarities in name with my ill-fated attempt at mathcore – is definitely not shit. “Put a Light In a Cloud” brings back fond memories of both deep-frying Myspace pages with bad html while also pumping fresh and fucking groovy mathy grind/death/core into the tail end of 2020. In a time when you can’t seem to even hit certain people in the face with a shovel made of common sense – we need a PlasticBag FaceMask.

From November 27th’s quaintly titled Content, “Put a Light In a Cloud” doesn’t even quite hit the two and a half minute mark, but takes fuck all time to get moving. With as much subtlety as a Zeppelin disaster, the gruesome twosome Lee and Hogan compete with each other via panning guitars and fills that seem to run from riff A through C and back to B. Typically for them the production is a compliment to the tilting and shifting nature of their music; filling-rattling bass and coarse chugs maraud the low end, shrill and offensive screeches and panic chords dominate the high. Unpredictable. Unimaginably moreish.

Over their decade-plus run, PlasticBag FaceMask have worked with friends and peers through much of their material and on Content, there are a ton of sick guest vocals. This track doesn’t have one though, but that’s cool. There’s still a massive shift in tone and delivery through the prowl’n’growl middle section that really cuts through the chaos. And then an even bigger fucking drop towards the end. Violent breakdowns dropping into one another like discarded Top Friends. While live performances from the band might be “about as rare as unicorns”, you’d have to be completely unaware of how live music works to not picture this one setting a dive bar alight with flailing fringes and the lethal whipping of loosened studded belts.

Content is out next Friday (27th) via PlasticSkull Records, CDs and cassettes available here. Tune low and keep featherin’ it.

Matt MacLennan

Published 3 years ago