Fashion Change Paranoid
- Format
12 Inch
Black
£18.00
The debut album from Fashion Change, Paranoid, is now available for pre-order. Our estimated shipping date is Friday 20th November.
‘Every day I sit and wait, Losing time, Losing space, Losing friends, Losing love, Now everyone’s my enemy, Is this what it’s like to be free?’ (Ego Trip)
Before evolving into its current form, Seattle’s Fashion Change was initially born as a solo project by Ryan Matthews, who is also involved in Democracy, Hologram, and Nasti. Fashion Change fully reflects this rich lineage, lurking very productively somewhere between the feral desperation of the former and the burly invention of the latter two.
Paranoid is the band’s first full-length and follows up the band’s 2021 cracking debut 7-inch, Devil Laugh. Brutishly bleak guitars, discordantly squalling solos, and bludgeoning rhythms lock into a malevolent, noise infused barrage that pulses with unpredictability as the rabidly barked vocals and their languidly drawled counterpoints contemplate the dark absurdities of our malaise.
Amid this claustrophobic deluge, the highlights come thick and fast. The wailed lament that is braided through the venomous opener, Dream Your Death. The spoken word tirade and squalling guitars that prime the merciless breakdown to Pressure. The euphoric wail that unfurls from the cacophonous disintegration of City Lights. The sheer unhinged velocity of Heaven In Hell. The dissonantly skittering melodicism of Ego Trip. From start to finish, Paranoid proves a desolately unruly treat.
The raison d’etre of Fashion Change is sonic destruction. Paranoid is a temporal mosaic of how such goal was achieved from the band’s inception up until this record was captured over 4 years later. It is presented as one complete movement that explores this punishing concept.
The band started in 2020, when member Ryan Mathews was jobless and living in his mom’s basement. He lived in isolation. The only things to look forward to were walks to the beach by her house, smoking weed in the garage, and playing along to Sabbath or G.I.S.M. The idea had bounced around for years, but in this isolation Ryan reached such a moment of distress that something needed to come out. With the assistance of a Tascam 488 and the Chaos UK drum beat the first tape, Coward was created.
Over a timeline that fit almost perfectly into Biden’s dismal presidency, the project became a band. Perspectives increased, shows were played, records and tapes released, members changed, people moved around and were exposed to new things. Influences and interests flowed in and out, but the main goal of sonic destruction never left.
The band and this record specifically is an eclectic mix of influences channeled through a hardcore punk band. Aside from bands within their genre like their namesake Chaos UK, Gai, and Confuse (especially Stupid Life), musically there are elements of other extreme bands such as Napalm Death and Last Exit. It’s an existential record, with lyrics that range from the personal to the political, the autobiographical to the theoretical, the stone cold to the absurd. One of Kafka’s ill-fated protagonists fits into its logic.
Someone should want to listen to this record if they want to get taken on a ride that activates and does something to their brains in a psychotropic way. This is a demonstration of paranoia and it invites the listener to step into this world and be at its mercy for 17:30 minutes. It is a punishing listen but also one of humor, musical diversity, resolve, and hope.
500 copies on black and 200 copies on glow in the dark 140gr vinyl housed in a 24pt jacket with big poster and 12 page booklet insert. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Sasha Stroud. Art by Leo McClutchy, Riley Kerr, and Jensen Ward.
FFO: Confuse, Napalm Death, Gasmask, Gauze, S.O.B., G.I.S.M.
-Iron Lung Records