Stalled - Contentment EP
Candlepin Records
Chicago, Illinois band, Stalled, comprise of Jack Curtin on guitar and vocals, Dylan Flynn on bass, and Nate Whitcome on drums. The Contentment EP is the second in their short run of releases thus far; it's early days yet, but a sense of the potential for something more is at hand.
The opening track 'A Conduit for This Contentment' sprawls out and then spirals down into a wall of sharp and dissonant noise. The guitars sound like the sensation of pins and needles being driven sideways into your skull. Prickly and pushing into stabbing territory, Stalled put their discontent on show.
'What It's Like' mellows out on this beautiful but sullen vibe - not bothered by surrounding affairs. Things seem to lift from time to time, but ultimately the heavy hands come right back around. Left out by means of self-inflicted choice - perspective offers up powers, pull back and see things as they are. Don't give people a reason to hang out with you, because they might. And then what would you do? Linger? Meander? Talk? It's a heavy ordeal and an even heavier sound palette. Murky and layered in a despondent jangle. These voices don't seem to take a day off - if anything they're working overtime. The underlying and unshakable sense that something's out to get you. Watching you. Following you around. Sticking voodoo dolls with the worst of it.
Only living a half-life; one that’s dependent on something else to fulfill a sense of 'whole'. A crutch of crippling necessity. Without it you're nothing - your mind reminds you each time it gets the chance. It wears you out the second the defenses are down. Resting on a beach of unresolved angst and grief the shores are overcome by invaders of the mental kind. There's no way to shake it off - all avenues have been tried and tested.
Stalled capture that distressed state like no other. Distanced from life, distanced from self.
