by Nik Skilton (@big_roomba)
Mister Goblin, the project of Bloomington musician Sam Goblin, is back and sounding harder than ever before. While their previous two albums Is Path Warm? (2019) and Four People in an Elevator and One of Them is the Devil (2021) each deliver music compelling enough to listen to on repeat for days on end, their new album Bunny delivers music that demands to be thought about at all times. It draws on post-punk and hardcore influences previously unheard in Mister Goblin’s discography. If there was ever any debate about Mister Goblin’s ability to move seamlessly between sounds and styles while still sounding unique, Bunny puts it to rest. It is heavier and more aggressive than its predecessors while still sounding like a perfect continuation of the sound the band has cultivated.
Bunny clocks in at ten songs lasting just over thirty minutes, and not a second of that is filler. The opening song, “Military Discount,” is heavy and loud. Goblin delivers the album’s opening lines, “military discount at the firework store” perfectly. His voice sounds like a jolt of electricity, sending a shock through your body and forcing you to stay attached. The guitar adds any extra jolt needed. It is loud and rapid without taking up all of the track’s space. “Military Discount” perfectly sets the tone for what is to come. “In Indiana” starts out slow with a wonderful riff and beautiful lyrics. The guitar tone is soft and melancholic, matching the sense of defeat and yearning delivered in the lyrics. Goblin sings “I’ve been waiting to go outside but the moments just pass me by,” expressing a feeling that millions have been feeling throughout the last two years. Nothing sums up the way life has been feeling lately better than “the birds are acting really strange”. The song ends on a stellar breakdown that channels all the feelings of defeat into one massive scream of anger.
On “Over the Moon” and “Safe Words,” the post-hardcore sonic influence is the clearest. They each feature attention catching industrial intros and slow yet heavy instrumentation. Seth Engel’s drumming comes through strong on these tracks and holds them together. The heavy kickdrum and hard crash hits feel like a tether to hold onto as Goblin powerfully screams “I don’t care if I ever come back to use the washer and drier again”. The final three tracks of the album wind the listener down. “Red Box” is a beautiful and caring song about a simple pastime with a loving companion. It captures the feeling of doing anything to be with someone, watching movies with them “even if all they have are shitty sequels to the Borne Supremacy”. Sadie Dupuis adds vocals to this track and helps create a feeling of longing that cannot be ignored. On the album’s final song, “One Year Dark,” Goblin sounds tired yet hopeful as he sings that everything may be fucked now but the future is still coming.
Bunny challenges its listeners to rethink their view of the world. The album touches on how mundane life can be, how sad missing loved ones can be, and how frustrating everything around us can feel. Yet it choses instead to focus on how you can address these feelings as a way of finding hope within them. Goblin is right. It is “hard to get older, we’ll be there soon, over the Earth, over the moon”.