Space Camp - Overjoyed In This World LP
"A lot of our songs are simple, with a groovy bassline, and a weird piano riff over it."
Three years later, and this quote from Space Camp, taken during the press cycle for their well received 2017 album, Force Femmed, is still useful. Each song starts out small, slowly expanding out into a cacophony of noise. Their newest record, Overjoyed in This World is no different.
This is helped by the mixture of a drum machine and live drum tracks, blending the two together seamlessly. It harkens back, whether by accident or on purpose to hardcore at the turn of the century. In that time acts like The Locust and The Blood Brothers sought to move beyond the confines of “macho hardcore”.
The world of Space Camp is all encasing, engulfing you in sounds of synth sludge. The breaks are minute, only serving to build tension for the stress inducing verses. The intro track starts off with a pretty string section, only before shifting to a more menacing section. It may create a dividing line for some people. There’s moments that are almost irritating, like the intro in “Girders”. These songs were never meant for hardcore kids who just want something to mosh to. It’s music that tries to address and navigate the experience of non-men, using inorganic soundscapes as its delivery system.
Taken in totality, Overjoyed In This World, doesn’t reinvent the Space Camp formula. It’s more of a continuation, or an update on an already solid structure. Everything feels as if it's in the right place, even if the music feels as manic as an imminent panic attack. - Post-Trash
Redscroll Records