by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
As a label, Total Punk Records is know for, well… punk music. It’s not just a clever name, but the label embraces many of punk’s subgenres, their artists contributing to the world of hardcore, garage punk, “egg punk” and “chain punk,” and even the occasional noise rock leaning punk record. A few years back the folks at Total Punk decided to try something new, creating Mind Meld Records, a sub-label that was created with the idea of having their favorite artists write and record albums free of their regular output, a chance for musicians to explore the further recesses of their minds.
Glittering Insects and their self-titled debut album takes the concept a bit further, exploring a trio of minds, bringing together Atlanta’s Greg King (GG King, Carbonas), Ryan Bell (GG King, Predator), and Josh Feigert (Wymyns Prysyn, GG King) for a collaborative effort. While all three members play together in GG King, Glittering Insects is assuredly something different, and it’s pretty astonishing. Written and recorded over a series of weekends spent in the studio, the album is made off-the-cuff, but you’d never believe it upon hearing it. The record trades in garage punk and beer soaked power-pop for something far more dense, sinister, and vastly expansive. Glittering Insects are entrenched in the weeds, tangling themselves ever deeper through an array of post-hardcore menace and death rock with touches of krautrock, black metal, and shoegaze adding impossible amounts of texture. The thing is though, it doesn’t really sound like any of those genres as the trio really only pull bits and pieces together to make something amorphous.
While lead single “Calcified Time” captured the death rock tension and post-hardcore combustibility of the project, “Screaming Ghosts Pt 1” leans more toward the haunted and experimental side of the record. The song, true to its title, is built on skittering whispered vocals, chopped and disorienting as they pass, heard but unintelligible. There’s a dim glow to the guitar’s meditative repetition and the singular line of melodic vocals, peeling a bit of slowcore, shoegaze, and early Midwestern emo with it. “Screaming Ghosts” is just one small part of the puzzle, another texture in the ever turning development of a spontaneous album.