by Patrick Pilch (@pratprilch)
Since Profligate’s start, Noah Anthony has diligently crafted a concentrated sound using an increasingly eclectic range of ideas, themes and approaches. The project’s dusky, groove-circling aesthetic remains fixed since 2012, two-stepping into dark techno on Finding the Floor (2014) and reeling through new wave noise on Somewhere Else (2018). Each release offers a new perspective pointed at Noah Anthony’s grave sonic vision. Profligate’s discography is a phoropter aimed at a staticky television, each record another lens switched to reveal a hidden 3D picture. Too Numb to Know adopts this consistent shift, finding Anthony yielding their most accessible material to date.
In sheer defiance of industrial club elitists, Noah Anthony flips the script on traditional experimentalism, incorporating guitars and live drums into the formerly electronic-exclusive project. While Profligate’s noise-tronica roots are embraced on tracks like “We Can Punish” and “Tula,” there’s a consistent push for merging newer melody-driven styles, combinations especially heard on “Drink a Spider” and “No Other Way.” The former track channels synth pop motifs along darkwave currents, weaving crunched guitars with 80s-nodding riffs into a clean and stunning modern retrospective. Vivid and disarming, “Spider” encapsulates Proligate’s plunge into immediate hooks using a consumer-recognizable palette.
The textures and soundscapes on Too Numb to Know are haunting and cinematic--synesthetic mediums setting familiar scenes. Listening to “Hang Up” I picture blinking strobes and refracting neons illuminating a mob of strung out revelers lolling their noggins to the heavy bass and latest opiate, the nightclub’s exterior crowded by pierced and leather-clad crowds hovering over glowing HoloWatches and sewer fog, lots of sewer fog. The Gibson-esque disco is just a hazy stop on Profligate’s winding noir-pop program. When the fog clears up, the record embraces acoustics on “My Days” and brilliantly straddles quintessential new wave on “Just a Few Things Wrong,” arguably the album’s best track. Approachable yet undoubtedly Profligate’s own, Too Numb To Know is a benchmark in Noah Anthony’s capabilities in pop-inclined songwriting and composition.