The Rotten Opera - Puzzle: Review
is the solo project of Fletcher Shears, better known as one-half of indie punk duo The Garden. The project dropped an EP in 2020 but has been quiet since then until the lead single for this record dropped. The Rotten Opera follows The Garden's new album Horseshit On Route 66 from last year.
Review by Lav:
I've never paid THAT much attention to Puzzle save for a handful of songs here and there but after The Garden released their best record to date last year which grew on me every time I heard it, I was craving anymore of the twins that I could get. That came sooner than I expected with this record, though I'm not complaining. This record is short, but that doesn't mean there's not much going on, in fact more than a few songs here are built specifically around that perceived chaos.
The lead single to the album love is a place to hide took longer than I'd like to connect with me which is unfortunate because as soon as I heard it on this record the extremely catchy chorus backed by blown-out angelic harmonies really started to click with me. The way it contrasts with the vocal samples and pummeling, distorted drums really work to make the song feel unpredictable and serves as a great start to the record. The closing track Taller than a Smokestack sounds really similar to this opener and basically bookends the record with this sound. While it's a bit more cloudy and distant by comparison the results are still pretty enjoyable.
The highlights continue on The Kiss which brings a mix of cheap-sounding synths and lo-fi mixing that I absolutely love with everything crackling in an irresistible way. Combine that with the haunted house aesthetics that seep into the track and it's a genuinely eerie listen that I always looked forward to hearing on the record. The great instrumentals continue on Barking at the Sea which gets off to a slow start but has an amazing final minute with some snarky refrains that stick with me mixed in with some great transitions into the string section and then back to that pummeling drum machine.
Though the record ends really strong and kicks off with a great opener, in between it can start to get a little bit lost in the details. Poison Oak is an interesting song with this distant kind of watery instrumental and a metallic sheen stretched over everything except for the clapping drum machines which are almost shockingly clear by comparison. It's an interesting sonic palette but I wish the song had something a little more catchy about it on the hook side of things.
Castle In The Air deploys some of the half-raps that so many great The Garden songs have but they're done in a far more relaxed way that I find pretty cool. While I understand the decision to bury everything in the mix here I can't help but think the song could be improved if I could just hear its marquee elements better. Tip My Hat is similarly close to being great with some horror show sounds that I really enjoy but Fletcher contrasts them in a weird way with his vocals which are much clearer and more energetic this time around. It doesn't completely ruin the song for me because I like the instrumental a lot, but a more reserved performance could have helped.
Unfortunately, there are also some tracks I just flat-out don't like. Personality Ransack reminds me a lot of the last Garden record but I don't think this song is put together nearly as well. The instrumental is clearly going for something chaotic in a good way but it ends up just distractingly messy. Most of that is due to the really awkward way the drum machine is worked into the song throughout. I can definitely see the fundamentals of a good song here but it's fumbled in the process. On the other end of the bad spectrum, there's One Hundred Geese which has some awkward little flute sounds that are cute at first but really get annoying as the song goes on. The bigger problem is how amateurish and underwritten it is, reminding me of some of the worst Bladee songs of the last few years.
With Horseshit On Route 66 last year The Garden made a project good enough that they could no longer be ignored. The Rotten Opera isn't that caliber of album for Puzzle. It's okay and I can certainly see the vision of genereless lo-fi enthusiasm that it aims for, the results are just far too mixed. At its best there isn't much else that sounds like Puzzle, but to pretend the album is at its best throughout would be missing some really blatant bad execution in between. 6/10
For more of Fletcher's music, check out my review of The Garden's Horseshit On Route 66 here
