Spesh
Famous World
Four members-Michael McKinney, Sergio Mirazo, Morgan Dixon, and Brian Yeager-spent years playing in bands, casually and sometimes seriously, in the manner of young, urbanite musicians with day jobs. After the disintegration of an earlier band, Mirazo and McKinney regrouped and began writing together in earnest. The resultant record, Famous World, is many things but it is certainly not punk, or at least, not in the conventional sense. Over the course of ten songs, Spesh spiral through a jangly, multi-hued sonic multiverse that recalls the esotericism of late Morrissey, the Psychedelic Furs cheeky wacko-pop, and Blur at their most stoned. Its an album bourn of a particular place and its immense anxieties, confrontational in its willingness to confound expectation. If you feel imperiled, perhaps the thing to do, Famous World suggests, is get weird.