’…a beautifully unique experience that is as life-affirming as it is life-changing, capturing what it means to be human in 2024 AD…’
‘I’m no bird of the air, I’m no lily of the field, and I’m not quite God‘
Where does humanity end, and divinity begin? Are you a fixed constant, an assembly of rigid atoms moving from point A to point B? Or are you perhaps a ship of Theseus, existing as some reckless moment of unstructured universal madness for a brief moment? What’s the point in God anyway if he’s not going to help pay the bills?
You don’t anticipate an album that opens with a track entitled ‘Trader Joe’s Frosted Mini-Wheats’ to challenge you with questions like this. But what Topiary Creatures have produced here is one of the most tender, enrapturing, thrilling, vulnerable, entertaining, and downright brilliant explorations of what it means to be a human; socially, financially, emotionally, spiritually.
Let’s rewind for a moment, and find out how we get to that point.
Based out of Nashville, Tennessee, Topiary Creatures describe their sound as ‘maximalist punk rock’, drawing influence from the recent waves of emo revival, and infusing that sound with an array of bright, invigorating pop sensibilities, with just a pinch of the progressive to really make it all stand out.
The four-piece arrived on the scene back in 2020, with their debut album ‘Tangible Problems”, followed up in 2022 with sophomore effort ‘You Can Only Mourn Surprises’. Earlier this month, the band returned once more with their third full-length record, ‘The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline’; a bold name, to say the least, accompanied by one of the most intriguing album artworks in a while.
Firstly, before we truly dissect the album, one must commend the pure production quality of this record. From start to finish, despite these being complex and densely packed pieces of music, every minute element of this record is electrifying to behold, given space to breathe in a mix that could easily have ended up being a muddy mess of over-ambition. Some bands with millions of pounds at their disposal have never come even close to creating a record that sounds this effervescent and compelling.
None of that means anything, however, if the music itself isn’t any good. And it’s not. This isn’t a good album.
It’s a fucking phenomenal one.
Topiary Creatures explore the human experience in a way that perfectly balances witty charm with heartbreaking honesty, with that ‘sparkling maximalist punk’ providing the backing for some of the most powerful and memorable lyricism on an emo record. Bryson Schmidt has a capacity for writing in a manner that, at first, seems abstract, and perhaps even nonsensical, but after a moment of thought, is revealed to be truly thoughtful and articulate.
Take the opening track, ‘Trader Joe’s Frosted Mini-Wheats’, a celebratory ode to existential dread and overthinking. It’s a grand firework display of an opener, perfectly giving you a taste of what Topiary Creatures. The trembling lead vocals of Schmidt, accompanied by the strident song-lark melodies of Elizabeth Harrington, delivering some absolutely incredible bars such as ‘Our pets don’t understand the lawn guy, but he’s stressing them out/We can’t explain to them, then what makes us think god is gonna help?’; never has the existential fear that we are nothing to a divine creator been boiled down so eloquently into one line.
Those themes are continued into the strikingly ambitious second track, ‘God is a Scared Kid at a Middle School Science Fair’. Instead of anger, Schmidt acts as a sympathetic presence towards God, framing the mess that is existence as the art of a child who just wanted to try their best, before being left, perhaps out of shame, ‘collecting dust in the garage’. It’s all set against marching, anthemic instrumentals, with sweeping strings and twinkling synths layered over a steady rhythmic backbone supplied by Gibson Littleton, as Schmidt implores ‘It’s just bad art. Or bad code/The class might laugh, but I won’t’. If we are made in God’s image, then surely the flaws we inherit part of the divine?
Things truly explode, however, on the utterly spectacular ‘Snakes in the Walls’. It’s that special kind of track that elicits a genuine physical response, propelling you from your seat at the track hurtles by as a blazing comet of sonic splendour. Schmidt is a tentative figure in the verses, set against a backing of simple percussion and glittering ambience, Nathaniel Edwards supplying a cruising bass line, before vaulting into incredible choruses that grab the listener and force them to take note of this band; the ‘talk to you’ refrain, with the dual lead vocals of Schmidt and Harrington is guaranteed to become firmly stuck in your head.
The stripped back interlude styled track ‘Dog’ follows, concluding the album’s first act, as Schmidt finds a common ground with his canine friend in terms of a lack of understanding behind the purpose of the rituals of organised, commercialised, western religion (‘Not getting pissed at the ritual must be pretty hard/Because I agree, it’s not more interesting than anything in the yard’).
From here, the album takes a far more raw, melancholic tone, with the complex and wonderfully nuanced ‘Fairfield Calvary Chapel Abortion Clinic’. What starts as a criticism of modern organised religion slowly evolves into an aggressively defiant defence of leaving the evangelical church behind (‘I’m not waking up, hurting my church cause it feels fun/I can rest well with misery’), utilising the ‘Calvary Chapel’ as a lens for this, with their fundamentalist views and avoidance of legal accountability despite controversies. Topiary Creatures position it as a flaw not of the divine, but of humans who would misuse what is sacred to control what is secular.
The sonic twist at the end of this track, making a turn towards a heavy post-hardcore sound, perfectly sets up the following number, ‘Home to Any Possibility’. Clocking in at under a minute long, this is acts as the pinnacle of the anger of the album, as Schmidt directly targets the Christian right-wing extremists and theological capitalist oligarchy of the United States with wild, ferociously screamed vocals; the pure rage of this track perfectly showcased with incendiary lines such ‘The great martyr’s shock collar rules your life and barely fits around your neck’.
The dust settles. Fury gives way to expansive ambience, the silence after the collapse. ‘Worms’ is simply beautiful, with its minimalist instrumentals, and gorgeous, reverb soaked vocals. Schmidt’s vaguely absurdist lyricism perfectly weaves with moments of blinding clarity, contrasting lines such as ‘I bought gentrified canned sardines, gave a $20, only got $2 back’ with ‘When it comes to life, someone’s kicking your ass with half the dreams, one-third of the cash’. It’s a heartbreakingly melancholy moment that captures the sensation that you are wasting your precious minutes on earth, yet lack the capacity or knowledge of how to change that.
The closing arc of the album opens from here, with the bright and chaotic ‘Carsick on Insherin’. Punchy riffs accompany bouncing bass lines and punkish rhythms, with glittering keys and synths layered over the top in a maximalist celebration of anxiety. Harrington features more prominently than ever before on this track, and sounds glorious throughout, her vocals strident and proud in the mix. The tempo change in the instrumental bridge is particularly electrifying, juxtaposed with a monumental final chorus.
Themes of abandoning your past return once more on ‘Sam & Another Kid “Run Away” From Fairhope’, a tender cut that showcases the band’s capacity for pushing the limits of the expansive, maximalist sound perfectly. Schmidt and Harrington wander aimlessly between your headphones, as gently thumping percussion carries the song forwards, accompanied by sparkling keys and subtly jazzy bass motifs. Whereas ‘[…]Abortion Clinic’ grappled with the existential questions of leaving behind what you know, this track boils it down a moment of losing childhood innocence, or perhaps a moment of childhood innocence in its purest form; the idea that there is something out there in the world, past what you may in the moment perceive as a safe and loving environment, that is better for you.
The curtains begin to draw on this album, but not before the band produce two more astonishing songs, along with a gorgeous interlude piece.
‘Michelangelo, ECD’ acts as a moment of drawing together the themes of religion, legacy, and self-actualisation across the record into one sweeping statement. Schmidt portrays himself as the legendary artist, reluctantly painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as a means to get by, bankrolled by the historical Medici family; Schmidt cares not for God or angels or cherubs, despising ascribing to a ‘religious fetish’, but sees no other way of pursuing his art without surrendering part of himself. A gorgeous feature verse from The Low Blow, however, questions Schmidt’s vision; are the comforts obtained in life worth having if they were born from a place of lying to oneself and others?
Schmidt moves into one final panic attack of a verse, as he considers the weight of his actions; if the legacy left behind comes from a place of dishonesty to the self, then is it a legacy worth leaving? How will the actions of he, just one individual, be judged in the wider scope of civilisation long after his death? Is there even an answer to this that matters, or is your immediate survival, ‘just the work’, what truly matters?
After the gentle instrumental number of ‘Office Ambience #2’, the album draws to a close with ‘Cleaning Basil Out of the Pool’. And ‘The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline’ solidifies itself as probably the best album of 2024.
This is a perfect closing track. And I mean that; absolutely perfect. From the gorgeous instrumentals that give the track a beautiful, sweeping nature, to the way it ties together every thread of this album into one conclusive idea, ‘Cleaning Basil[…]’ is the kind of track that genuinely will force you to re-evaluate your perspective on art and life. Schmidt frames the mind as a room; limited in size and scope, only able to be decorated with a limited number of memories; you, the person, has no say in how it becomes decorated.
‘Time handles out memories like some shit on a shelf/Let me deal with clutter; I can prove it wrong’, Schmidt begs his biology, seeking to show that he knows what is important to himself. But the brain is impassive, biological, a machine; no matter what memories Schmidt yearns to keep, he doesn’t get the privilege of the final say on what stays.
And it’s the frogs that get you.
One of many samples on the record, this track features recordings of frogs at the Cornelia Fort Airpark. It rises up from the quiet midsection of the track, a gentle chorus of croaking, almost as if one of the many memories that Schmidt is yearning to keep is rising to the surface of lucidity; a moment of simple joy, seeing some frogs. It’s a strangely deeply emotive moment; we are, as humans, constantly dissolving, an assembly of moments that swap and change, forming some half-divine collection of atoms that looks back at the universe it is part of and smiling. There is much pain, much trauma. But there are moments of joy that you must remember to be present in; you know not what your mind will take with you into the future.
And with a final beautiful run through of the album’s main melodies, Topiary Creatures sign off on a wonderful, wondrous experience.
Earlier in this review, I described ‘The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline’ as ‘fucking phenomenal’. But that still doesn’t quite do this record justice. What Topiary Creatures have crafted is a beautifully unique experience that is as life-affirming as it is life-changing, capturing what it means to be human in 2024 AD, in all of its ugly, chaotic wonder.
Yes, 2024 may yet have an even more perfect record waiting to be listened to, but those chances are astronomically slim. I’ve always said that the easiest score to ever give a record is five stars, a ten, a 100/100, and it’s because you know it immediately. It strikes you, somewhere far deeper than whatever superficial reviewer bullshit you can put up. It reminds you just why you listen to music in the first place. And you know, regardless of what your mind may try, the memory of your first listen will remain emblazoned on your neurons for life.
‘The Metaphysical Tech Support Hotline’ by Topiary Creatures is now the tenth Vinyl Fantasy Reviews 100/100 record.
RATING: 100/100 – Perfect
For Fans Of: Manchester Orchestra, Fireworks, Waterparks, Origami Angel, Bo Burnham
Physical copies of the album are available to purchase here.
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