If I really wanted to – and I don’t – I could fall down a rabbit hole reading various essays and blog posts about the death of the album. But for the sake of simplicity (and laziness), let’s say the first knell sounded shortly after the release of the first compact disc, due to the ability to play both sides without pause. And sure, eight-tracks also did that, but they also sucked too hard for mass adoption and did not appear to be much mourned; in fact, when I was a baby, I’m told my ma turned her back “for a second” and looked back to find me laughing maniacally and ripping reams of tape from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Allegedly, the sheer joy in my infant’s laugh compensated for her disappointment at not being able to listen to “Stayin’ Alive” on demand without FM 101 WIXX DJs yapping over it.
I am old enough to have started off with vinyl records, then cassettes, and as such, grew up with a tangible delineation between sides A and B. Although vinyl is making an impressive comeback – and I do welcome it for the revenue it brings artists – and despite buying key favourites – in all honesty I’m always going to spend my bell at Bandcamp and stream on Spotify instead. My music experience has been entirely digital for quite a while now, albeit a few years later than many people’s, and I can’t pretend I don’t enjoy the ease and convenience, as well as the cost-savings, but it’s made the death of the album very apparent.
It’s no secret I’m something of a sideways poptimist, thankfully rescued from toxic rockism via a gaggle of chums who reminded me music is meant to be fun. And while it’s clear a deep seam of rockism features in my very foundation, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX feature prominently in my top ten 2024 records. And that’s the part of rockism that won’t die for me: I’m an albums-woman, firmly of the belief that you should play it through from start to finish or don’t bother. While I love a complex, multilayered concept, that’s just a glacé cherry on a sundae; what I expect is a coherent theme. Even if there isn’t an obvious unifying subject matter, sides A and side B were generally arranged in such a way that you noticed a kind of shift or continuation of a subtle vibe.
Doom Patrol is not such an album, although superficially, it might appear so. Some of the later tracks flow directly into one another and without any obvious change other than of song title, and it could very easily be mixed and edited as one long piece split into movements. But similarity does not equate to a connective, overall theme.
Maybe because of this, Doom Patrol has not been on high rotation, which can be partly attributed to the fact that it was the last album to be released after two years of relentless back catalogue clearouts. It was a great time but also kind of overwhelming, and as such, I found very few reviews to compare my opinions with. But the main reason I haven’t listened much is that there’s no there there; the brief comment on Rate Your Music calling Doom Patrol “interesting…but with no discernible boundaries…too directionless to leave much of a lasting impression” sums it up succinctly. Before this project began, I may have listened two or three times and then kept putting off both listening and close-listening and therefore kicking the review-can down the road, meaning I’ve probably heard Despair more times than this.
As is often the case with the 2016-17 tranche of Ipecac Recordings albums, a bit of light archeology unearths connections to previous albums: the Mars Volta wiki is excellent for parsing the guitar sample from Killing Lifting Tingled Retreat’s “Or Make War” that features here on “Chew, Devour”. Considering how much I wang on about lyrics, it’s pretty telling that I didn’t pick up on the fact that the lyrics to “Voraz” are also heard on “Roman Lips”, and only realised it after reading the same Mars Volta wiki page.
But I found it hard to pinpoint exactly what my beef is. The notes I made for “Chew, Devour” are broadly the same as they are for every other song:
- plinky in a plodding, disinterested way
- vexingly familiar (that’ll be that sample)
- discordant echoes add confusing layers
- energy kicks up yet vocals drag their feet
- piano violation/penetration…and then it just sort of ends
The best I could do was to compare “Tight Mess Boys” with a jumper that’s both comfortable and fashionable but too covered with pills to be worn publicly, in a point I was trying to make about acceptable fuzziness. I also thought “Maggot Breath” sounded like all the instruments were having an argument and chatting bulllshit over the top of one another. But these comments could easily apply to any song on the album.
It’s not even that this is a terrible record, in that the music isn’t bad, and certainly no one should feel bad. There’s quite a bit of groovy standup bass that filters through, as on “Circuitry of Team Rash”, but my notes for “In Case of Emergency, Die Slowly” just say like The Shitty Beatles (not just a clever name). I’ve no real desire to dunk on this, but that too is its own kind of burn. There is love – twisted, toxic love – but love nonetheless in a hatchet piece where the vitriol either comes from feeling let down by a favourite or the evil joy in trashing a hated target. Still, this is one record out of dozens and one of a handful I’ve no time for. Also, the titles absolutely whip, and one of them gives a question to the Jeopardy! answer “A three-word definition of fascism”.
Track listing:
Chew, Devour
Tight Mess Boys
Maggot Breath
Cruelty Restores Order
Necroplasty
In Case of Emergency, Die Slowly
Washed Heel Flip
Voraz
Circuitry of Team Rash
Dressed for a Stabbing Museum