by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Hold on to your anus, it’s time for INUS, aka The Institute for Navigating the Universal Self. This band has ventured way off the rails, though it’s pretty obvious they were never on them to begin with. Led by The Locust’s Bobby Bray (guitar/vocals), together with Brandon Relf (drums) and Chad Deal (bass), the trio will release their exceptionally titled debut album, Western Spaghettification, on August 9th via Three One G (Zealot, More Pain, Kool Keith). Gloriously mangled and deranged, INUS take a hyper-active look into corporate malaise and dead-inside institutionalism, with a jerky and erratic approach to deconstructed punk and serrated noise rock. INUS inhabit a planet all their own and their tongue-in-cheek genre description of “pre-postapocalyptic, post-honky-tonk-prog-skronk, space Tropicalia, math-lounge powersilence” is both hilarious and shockingly accurate.
Sounding like the demonic offspring of Devo and The Locust for these modern times, INUS present themselves as part-time explosive head trip and part-time corporate training session, complete with “educational slideshows that riff on subversive political commentary, dada-surrealist sci-fi, scathing social critique, fake news, space cults, infomercials, spoofs on the Department of Defense, and shout-outs to corporate sponsors.” If you’re still scratching your head, simply know this… INUS are pure, unfiltered, experimental noise punk, and they’re having fun making it as ridiculous as they can while retaining strict control over every shifting movement of blast beat exploration.
“Time Is A Person,” the album’s second single (following “Kajilions and Bazillions”), is a great introduction to anyone thinking about joining INUS, a warped and melted polyrhythmic masterpiece that grinds and skips, running around like a chicken with its head cut off. The vocals, processed and alien, ripple in-between waves of noise, a falsetto so pinched it no longer resembles humanity. The video, a hilarious slide-show style montage of ultra-chic corporate buildings, impractical furniture, and automated-everything is intercut with footage of old school desk/chair combos gone the way of “early retirement” as they say. The song’s frantic pacing and hostile collision of knotted guitars, bass, and drums is a the perfect soundtrack to a world aesthetic that is mundane in its own “creativity.” INUS are really committing to their space-prog-grindcore, savior of student minds forged into jelly aesthetic, and it’s a damn pleasure to witness.
As of Friday, July 5th, all digital pre orders on iTunes will receive a free download of “Time Is A Person.”