We Found This is an unforgettable and energetic foray into experimental psych-rock from Gloin.
We Found This, the debut album from Toronto-based psych-rockers Gloin, is a dizzying affair. Over ten outstanding tracks, the band frantically dives head-first into the world of delay-heavy, fuzzed-out hallucinations in rock and roll. The songs are sharp, abrasive, awash in noise, and effortlessly electrifying. This is all you will ever need for those partial to that particular level of radioactivity that comes from the feedback of a guitar running through a broken monitor.
The angular post-punk indebted “Pitchfork” kickstarts the album. The catchy yet ominous number hinges on an inscrutable guitar riff paired with a concrete drum beat. “Thoughts are all we have of meaning / Void upon what is living,” sings John Watson through an insane amount of reverb. The evasive lyrics march between the riffs in typical post-punk fashion, and at points, the indecipherable quality feels like the dynamic paranoid ramblings of genre icon Mark E. Smith.
With production help from Dylan Frankland and Graham Walsh (METZ, Holy Fuck), Gloin explores the entire spectrum of distorted psych music. The delay-heavy album offers a kaleidoscope of hallucinations with its tight and punchy songs. Whether it be the electronic side of things with “Winter Abroad,” which emerges from the haze of a synth drone, or the sludgy stoner-metal “Positivland II,” which makes you feel like you’re floating in space, Gloin holds nothing back in their search for anomalous sounds.
“OCT,” in particular, feels like the thesis statement of We Found This. Part dial-up tone, part hardcore, “OCT” is an unclassifiable high-octane trip. Gloin intentionally makes it difficult to peg the lead instrument, and the vocals are buried so deep under a mountain of noise that you can’t even make out what singers Watson and Vic Byers are saying. The song is simultaneously foreboding and freeing, dark yet fun, and it’s clear that “OCT” is more of an exercise in abstraction rather than any structured form.
A highlight on an album of highlights is “Work Patrol.” Like watching tin foil in a microwave, its abrasive, provocative, psychedelic vitality is transfixing. With a catchy and effervescent hook, Byers reminds us of capitalism’s exploitative and unhallowed mechanism of capitalism. It’s the most explicit message on the whole album, and its tight lyrics leave little room for confusion.
We Found This is an unforgettable and energetic foray into experimental psych-rock. Gloin seems to have tapped into something that’s opened up the entire universe for their sonic exploration, and it’s clear this talented band has many more exciting adventures ahead.
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