Washington, D.C.’s bubblegrunge outfit The Paranoid Style return with their next album, Known Associates, once again a surprising listening experience. Across the eleven new songs, Elizabeth Nelson writes like a court reporter for the American psyche, filing dispatches from boardrooms, jail cells, union halls and backseats of taxis. The lyrics follow who gets shut out, who cashes in, who flames out and who keeps fighting anyway, mapping the uneasy terrain between power and precarity in modern life: “Strolling through the minefield // Rolling up the stone // The thing that they don’t tell you // Is the one thing ya shoulda known // And just like that your mind gets blown // Tearing the ticket” (from opening track Tearing The Ticket).
The writing is sharp, funny, vibrant, and morally alert, marrying high-literary allusion to dive-bar bite, and its soundtrack fits in seamlessly. Horns punch and sigh in all the right places, guitars crunch, and the rhythm section keeps things moving with audible joy. It’s a sound that’s extroverted, at times even theatrical, fascinating for the entire 40 minutes.
Known Associates is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Bar/None Records.