by Myles Tiessen (@myles_tiessen)
I don’t know about you, but I was hooked when I first heard The Serfs. I initially found them via the authoritative punk archive/YouTube channel, Harakiri Diat, and reading the YouTube comments on that first album makes it clear that those who love The Serfs LOVE them.“It’s good to know that there are PEOPLE making THIS music THESE days,” says one video commenter. “Diggin’ It,” simply says another. Their 2019 debut album, Sounds of Serfdom, racked up plenty of plays over on the ol’ YouTube (hopefully that translated to physical sales of their media). However, they still manage to remain elusive and confound search engines, and lo, that first record was released to relatively quiet acclaim.
Their sophomore release, Primal Matter, was worth the three-year wait. The Cincinnati-based post-punk band continues their minimal wave impulse and leans heavier on melodies and grooves to elevate the songs into a tremendous sonic aerospace. The drum and bass have more direction and move with a precise focus, while the depth of production creates a polychromatic musical feast. Every track is filled to the brim with ornate synths that extravagantly overflow the speakers or headphones, trying their hardest to contain the dazzling songs.
Now, however gorgeous the bones of the songs sound, they still contain a great deal of violence. The drums are disturbingly metallic, and often, the songs dissolve into airy feedback. That’s not to mention wash-out and robotic vocals. On “Nocturnal Job,” the running bass pulsates through the entire tracks while on top floats wind-chimes and an earworm melody. It all sounds accessible until domineering vocals aggressively break, though, infusing the track with a ghostly haunting. This decision doesn’t break the song or create a dichotomy between the instrumentation and vocals but aids in creating more depth and experimentation.
The band’s confidence shines on standout track “The Willows” as they dance around the bouncing drum machines, industrial snare hits, and their typical bassline. The feverish disco track feels like a hip shaker, and the unintelligible lyrics seem to speak to you from what feels like another wash-out and delayed dimension. A song like “The Willows” shows the value The Serfs place on emotional atmosphere over empirical songcraft—It lands somewhere between smooth and disorienting.
The Serfs flip flop between accessibility and remoteness through the entirety of Primal Matter. At some points sounding like a dower, Soft Cell (“This Chorea”), and others emulating the sounds of a dying computer (“The Orator”). Despite this, all tracks work harmoniously together in pursuit of the album’s vision.