by B. Snapp (@snappstare.bsky.social)
How do we go back in time and relive all the anxiety-riddled "recent events" we’ve had to process since Eddy Current Suppression Ring last checked in? When they left us with All in Good Time at the tail end of 2019, it felt like a promise—or a threat—that the world would sort itself out if we just let the gears turn. Then 2020 hit like a cyclone, disrupting everything in ways no one saw coming, including the absence of a new ECSR release. Then, at the end of May 2026, a new LP popped up out of the blue on Bandcamp. Released on their own Suppression Records label, the fifth ECSR studio album, In Light of Recent Events, delivers a social survival guide to the sheer volume of chaos and nonsense churned up since we last saw them. It’s eleven tracks of their signature garage-punk, hewn together by able hands and a voice for today, operating as a jump-up-and-down defiance of daily malaise. Who cares? Maybe we do.
At least we can agree we care about the music. From the blunt awareness of "Self Sabotage" to the raucous conjecture of closer "Past and Future," the band operates entirely on instinct. On the second track, "If shit gets tired; we could rearrange it," Brendan Huntley drawls, his half-spoken, vulnerable scatting floating above Mikey Young’s wiry guitar lines and Danny Young’s urgent drumming, all welded together by the thumping bass lines of Brad "Rob Solid" Barry. They ignite a calm rebelliousness wrapped in a laissez-faire shrug: "I won't do it, I just won't do it… Bopshoowop, a bopbopshoowop." They still deliver that fuck-it-all attitude with grace.
There’s something vital about to pop in this “Bop.” Don’t believe for a second that it’s “Hard to Be Moved” by this album. Huntley sounds wound-up and wounded when he winds and wails, "...maybe you will do it when you're drowning in your sorrow... It's hard to be moved when I'm glued to my seat!" But despite the existential-crisis weight behind the lyrics, the groove acts as an immediate catalyst. Feet start moving, hands start shaking, head starts nodding. Like seeing the “bigger picture” and trying to look away, but we can’t. It’s still gratifying to see the oh-so-bad circle around us and rise above it.
"Turtle” is a standout burn-and-churn track right out of the tortoise shell of ECSR’s past discography. It’s deeply introspective, with Huntley unpacking old ghosts, reminiscing about childhood, pondering what’s been lost and newly gained, symbiotic with the building finger-picked chord pattern:
“Disguised in the form of your former self / making you doubt the hand that you’ve been dealt / for what it’s worth, I’ve got what I need / Searching for memories that were better left / buried deep in the darkest recess of my mind, every time / for what it’s worth, I’ve got what I need.”
The song captures that unique meditative trick where anxiety and exhilaration feel like a simultaneous inhale and exhale. The match is lit, the switch is flipped, and the Current takes off, riding a slinky lead guitar line and a driving bass up to a casual crescendo and back down again. It gives you that rare, assured feeling of seeing through to the other side, landing you right back in the saddle of the record's swing.
Thinking about it from the beginning, each song in succession kind of trips the listener and picks them up again, in the fashion of a two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back shuffle. Side one of the record wraps it up with a do-over, an inaugural questioning of "Ivory Tower" ("Where do I begin?"), only for side two to break water immediately with the infectious splash of "Swimming Hole." It’s an ironic pop song that’s darker than the shimmer on the surface of the tune: "Oh come on baby, grab my hand, I'm drowning in this world that I don't understand. The human race is on a roll, I’ll see you down at the swimming hole...” It’s cynical, incredibly catchy, and, like every song laid brick by brick here, built for heavy, sustainable rotation.
Take "Empathetic," which delivers a gritty, derailed dose of reality: "I try and be empathetic, but you don’t see, no, you don’t get it." The architecture here is beautifully primitive—just a hypnotic vamp, a quick close rhyme, and a repeated chant turned inside out by a sudden falsetto. Mikey Young’s guitar solo actively sluffs off traditional bluesy tropes, like it can’t be bothered to stick any landings. The whole thing feels entrenched in calculated disillusionment filtered through their evolved proto-punk center. And that’s what’s so addictive, like chain-smoking—burning a riff down to the filter just to use the cherry to light the next one. Same smoke, same burn, different day. Alchemy from simple, have-at-hand ingredients, forging something enticing.
The band has the distinct knack for taking a familiar blueprint, tearing it apart, and reassembling it with the seams showing. Words accent the riffs; riffs underpin the lyrics. They’re making out, making in, and completely deconstructing the garage-rock form. Whether that’s a hyper-conscious aesthetic choice or just pure, instinctual muscle memory doesn't matter. It works because it tugs at both your brain and your chest simultaneously.
As a whole, In Light of Recent Events tackles the weight of our current timeline without succumbing to it. It sifts through the wreck of what happened Yesterday and what’s expected to decay into the Future, but its true power belongs entirely to the Right Fucking Now. It captures a timeless, urgent present that is notoriously difficult to pin down. Like a Gen-X junkie’s dream, time will tell if this one keeps resonating into the next era and the next—but right now, it feels like momentum, like progress to return to center. More than anything, it feels like finally finding your way home. Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s home, that is. And it feels just right to be back.