What Are You Listening to?

[Alabaster Creature]

Black Dresses - LOVE AND AFFECTION FOR STUPID LITTLE BITCHES

Feels wrong that this project never actually got a mention here while it was still together from my cursory search. Seems to me like a clear descendent of the music that this board is about, even though the line of influence does not seem to be direct (edit: it is). I hope more people get to hear it.

This is raw as hell, but crisply written industrial pop that wonderfully embraces what would probably be considered "bad" and "overly digital" sounds and timbres with a purposeful zeal rarely seen outside of a 90s Atari Teenage Riot record. There's of course many other precedents for what's happening here thematically and sonically, but their music still felt genuinely fresh to me the first time I heard it, and still does. Also the performances are incredible, especially for the kind of parts and melodies they are often tied to. This is abrasively sincere music in multiple ways.

I really love that in music "aggressive" verbs and adjectives can often play much more ambiguously than they do in other forms of art where they tend to be more strictly functional. Black Dresses illustrate this idea really well, other people have aptly described them as encapsulating feelings of being powerful and powerless at the same time. This is extremely bold and big music that's often about feeling small, which a lot of my (other) favorite music also is.

At least both members are really prolific, producing a lot of music in other projects. This record from August of 2019 is not even their most recent album, I just suspect it's a slightly better introduction to their music.