by Álvaro Molina (@alvaromolinare)
Advertisement is a five-piece band that came out of Seattle some time around 2018. Their debut EP This is Advertisement, released on cassette via Help Yourself Records, showcased a humorous take on life’s nonsenses through power pop infused loud bangers. The band has now made their LP debut with American Advertisement, an album filled with wry insights of a surreal cartoonish existence, witty dark comedy, and an eclectic mix of sounds that ranges from kraut-inspired rock & roll to country gems of mild psychedelic affection.
“Freedom; is the name of this song,” are the opening lines of (yup, you guessed it) “Freedom,” the album’s first track. Despite stating the obvious through its title, this song is a pretty engaging way to get an initial glimpse of Advertisement’s outlook on the shallowness of, well, everything nowadays (“Everybody’s hip now and saying something with words / But nobody is really saying nothing!”). With groovy-krautrock vibes and slick vocals in the style of Tom Verlaine and Jonathan Richman, this kickass album-opener is a total shake and head-bang, even if it’s a “song that says nothing at all”. Or does it? Even though the track rejects any frivolous, escapist, or pretentious ramble of whatever freedom means today, it still gives you the freedom to laugh at yourself, and that’s kind of liberating.
Advertisement gets their kicks from trying to make sense of all our contemporary messy culture of nonsense. Whether they do it by aiming straight to the guts of the millennial ambition fantasy (on, say, the wavy upbeat of “Pretty Money”) or taking a witty stand towards falsehood on the psych freakbeat of “Tall Cats,” there’s always a diabolic attachment in their music to the relatable flaws of everyday life. There’s also room for some funny, surreal tales in the LP: “She Was Dead” tells this crazy story of a girl (“She flew too close to god and all that jazz”) while “My World Now” (maybe the weirdest tale of all?) takes place in a bizarre, dreamlike land where “Grey sky and streets alike / send you through on a motorcycle / while all your lovers have gone on strike”. Pretty sweet.
All these stories unravel through fine, extensive rock & roll. It’s music you would feel like playing both during intimate and emotive drunkenness or during collective wanderings amongst rambling trains of thought. Songs like “Shipwrecked Hearts” and “Days of Heaven” feel like devotional 70s dad rock in the style of CSNY, while “My World Now” and “Upstream Boogie” take cues from the chewy guitars of Big Star and sprinkle in some drops of neo-psychedelic pills. The album-closer “Always” is an epic seven minute warp of delicious boogie kraut-punk that pushes even further the limits of the sweet sounds of Advertisement.
American Advertisement arrived during strange weird-ass times. If you’ve been feeling a little frantic lately, well, this album might work for you. All the themes that could’ve been overlooked as a heavy burden of cheap nihilism, get treated with brazen, savvy overtones on these eleven songs. Highly relatable and so much fun, Advertisement’s LP asks (and answers) you, “do you ever wake up to strange things? / Yes of course, Always”. Let’s hope it’s for the best.