Polyenso – Year of the Dog EP

By Ryan G

My main complaint with this album is that it’s only an EP. If recent interviews are any indication, however, there is more music coming later this year.

Polyenso seems to be channeling my psyche on this four track EP. I’m a generally chill person with bursts of passion. The past three years for me have had intermittent panic attacks brought on by everything from social media arguments, work deadlines, dating (and lack thereof), to clutter in my apartment.

Sometimes, we have to take all of that clutter and make it into art. That is something Polyenso is good at doing. “Neon Mirror” is a clear indication that the band isn’t sampling everything and the kitchen sink this time around, instead taking the best elements from Pure in the Plastic. “Reassuring” is a word I often use to describe songs I like on this blog, and that adjective certainly applies to “Neon Mirror” as well. The long outro on the song is a needed reprieve from whatever turmoil you may be feeling.

“Bastard,” it was made known by the band, could be interpreted by the political environment. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, you can’t deny the thickness of the tension in the country right now. This song is jarring enough to acknowledge the conflict, but there’s also an inherent “let’s just chill out and listen to music, mannnnn” vibe. Forgive the cheesy hippie analogy.

In “Bastard” I can draw an analogy between myself and my come-and-go anxiety as well. Listening to this song is like laying in bed and trying to will off a panic attack without directly dealing with it.

“Happy” is almost ironically titled, as it hits me the hardest of the EP thus far. Gone are the floating feelings of “Neon Mirror.” This song is good at articulating in art form the difference between a smile and a grimace. Sometimes the line is a little blurry. I can relate; I’ve hit the peak of my anxiety when mere hours before I was blasting music in my car without a care in the world.

“I Go You Go” wraps up the release all too quickly. It has the feel of some old-school Polyenso. It feels like an airier cut of a tune off One Big Particular Loop. I think to myself, “I’d like to hear this song in surround sound.” That feeling of coming and going would be all the more visceral in that scenario.

So there you have it. I shared a bit more about me (hopefully without getting into TMI territory), and I made my case for why Polyenso is an all-time fave. Check out Year of the Dog, and give them a reason to keep putting out awesomely weird tunes.

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