Brooklyn punk band Bodega’s debut album, Infinite Scroll, was largely a lament that trendy life is lived by means of screens, however there have been additionally songs about low-wage employees promoting gluten-free sugar water in Union Sq. and the ridiculousness of center-liberal New Yorkers pondering Trumpism was unprecedented. Songwriters and vocalists Ben Hozie and Nikki Belfiglio made incisive factors, however the method they took on a few of Infinite Scroll’s political songs wasn’t at all times the sharpest line of assault. They often mocked the very individuals who may stand an opportunity of coming round after some open-minded dialog—say, the identically dressed however doubtlessly well-intentioned showgoers of “Title Escape.” On follow-up Damaged Gear, which Hozie co-produced with Bodega’s stay sound mixer Bobby Lewis, Hozie and Belfiglio nonetheless stumble a bit after they try sociopolitical commentary. They continue to be centered on the ceaseless challenges of dwelling in New York—and, by proxy, any main U.S. metropolis—however now, their overdriven guitars don’t fairly sound as bitter or fed up. Damaged Gear usually appears like a band weary of getting to make the identical factors they’ve at all times made however then doing it anyway.
They shine finest after they write about love, when their vocals transcend sing-speaking, and after they blast the overdrive on their midtempo punk riffs. On “Doers,” Hozie’s cadence approaches rapping, an thrilling new model for him. When the band provides crunchy guitars and Tai Lee’s percussive thwacking in the course of the refrain, Bodega briefly transcend their lopsided lampooning. Ham-fisted references to a “soylent rest room seat” and innovation being not possible with out dongles sandwich the razor-sharp line “I take all my meals to go/It’s quick down the tube/Supply, and again to my workflow,” a gastronomical tackle the productive forces of capitalism.
His rhetoric holds up barely higher on “NYC (disambiguation),” the place comparatively pared-back verses swell into an overdriven singalong chant of “New York was based by an organization”—a historical past lesson that in 1626, the Dutch West India Firm purchased New York from the indigenous Lenape tribe. Elsewhere, when he and Belfiglio purpose their accusations upward, they fall again to the bottom earlier than they attain their goal. On “Thrown,” he spits, “I’m surrounded by bureaucrats/And I used to be cold-called by two Democrats/Who stated ‘senators thrown’/Nonetheless failing the category,” over click-clacking guitars; his voice has a scornful sneer however not fairly the rage that lambasting a complete political celebration begs for.
Hozie is at his most participating when exploring romance. On “All Previous Lovers,” proper after he sings, “All previous lovers stay inside you,” guitars rattle like little fireworks going off, as if he finds energy, not dread, in reflecting on previous relationships that didn’t pan out. “I’m gonna present I like you,” he slowly intones atop phaser-heavy chords on “Pillar on the Bridge of You,” a love music he wrote for Belfiglio, earlier than transitioning to one thing extra like a speak-shout: “When my again lifts you up that road!” His pleasure is audible, and there’s one thing candy about somebody so liable to derision being so genuinely enamored that he’ll use his complete physique to indicate it.
