Plastic Death - glass beach: Review

Review by Lav:

glass beach's first album, the fittingly titled the first glass beach album dropped back in 2019 and has attained quite a cult following in the years since. That's due to a few factors. The raw presentation and emotional vulnerability are in line with numerous internet-core classics and moments on the record felt like the future of emo. But in the rapid-fire pace that internet genres develop, 2019 feels like three waves ago. That's why I'm not surprised that the band returned with an indulgence into prog rock and art rock that sounds entirely different than their debut. 

I was all over this album after having heard the first two singles. the CIA was the lead single of the album and it's still my favorite glass beach song to date. It's one of the catchiest and most exciting singles I heard last year and every single compositional development it deploys feels both well-earned and perfectly reinforced. I also still like rare animal a lot with its rumbling driving percussion in contrast with the meandering refrains. They come together to craft a really interesting sound and when it erupts into a blistering hook it sounds great. The callouts of "tomorrow was all smoke and mirrors" sounds so great at the song's conclusion. 

There are more highlights among the deep cuts though. opener coelacanth is like dipping your toes into the album. It begins with the kind of twinkly guitars and gentle singing that I was expecting to hear on the album. But later on, it erupts into the kind of proggy noodling that defines much of Plastic Beach, and I mean that in a good way. I also enjoy motions whose wiry eruptions of noise I was hoping for on the project making their first appearance. For a song whose lyrical framing is about going through the motions, it's impressively unpredictable throughout. The song oscillates between blistering punky raging and dizzying instrumental complexity managing to fit an impressive amount in just 3 minutes. 

Following motions there's a stretch of songs on the album that I'm not crazy about. But thankfully the album picks up in a major way later on starting with my favorite deep cut of the bunch puppy. The song has an absolutely kick ass instrumental that sets up one hard-hitting moment after another. I also just love how infectiously sweet the sound of the is even as the lyrics divulge into unsettling territory especially when the layered refrains come in. This track is the expansive futuristic pop-punky rager I was hoping for. It's followed by the killer and 200. The songs feel like a necessary exhale especially the former. the killer has one of the gentlest instrumentals on the album and yet I love the way it sways alongside the cracking, whimpery little vocals. 200 starts off similarly slowly but revs up the intensity a bit more. Thankfully, it does a great job of keeping its emotional potency in tact and still feeling like a fully realized ballad. 

That exhale feels even more necessary once we reach commatose, which spans a full 10 minutes. I would argue that the song starts off a bit too quiet and patient even for my taste, which is really saying something. I thought that on re-listens I may feel differently like it was supporting later moments on the song but I never really came around. Thankfully the rest of the song feels much more immediate. Tha anguished and thunderous midpoint of the track is truly one of the best and most intense moments on the entire album with one of the best vocal performances I've ever heard on a glass beach song. The track flirts with an over-indulgence that I think is present across much of the record but I was always excited to reach it late in the album. 

I'm also a big fan of the closer abyss angel. It's yet another point on the record that tugs on your heartstrings which is very welcome for a finale. The band builds the song into something dizzying at its peak of instrumentation but just equally as anguished at its lowest emotional depth. 

There is definitely a tangible lull on the first half of the album, though I don't want to linger on it. guitar song and whalefall are two tracks that have had very little impact on me with every listen. cul-de-sac is the best of the bunch indulging in the purest interpretation of emo music that pops up anywhere here. But even then eventually it reaches an explosive but not all that satisfying proggy bridge which I have very mixed feelings about. Finally, there's slip under the door which has some really compelling individual moments. Unfortunately, it's the one track here that feels completely thrown together with VERY sonically distinct sections that don't really seem to reinforce or support each other much at all. 

Ultimately plastic death is what I would call a satisfying follow-up. While I've read some people online claiming that the album failed to deliver on the specific style they associate with the band, I think a progression in sound was inevitable. This album really does carry the weight of the 4+ years since the last glass beach effort sounding, funny enough, like a reflection of some shifts in the musical landscape that came as a direct result of its predecessor. But to burden this album with the expectations and characteristics of the music world around it isn't fair. Though it often over indulges plastic beach is packed full of instantaneous moments that bring together emotional potency with instrumental technicality in a way I find pretty satisfying. 7/10

For more loud and lo-fi music check out my review of poorly wrote suicide note's pwsnii