After stints playing drums for acclaimed singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray and a list of other bands, Robert Preston Collum (guitar, vocals) stepped out into the spotlight with his solo project Pink Mexico. Preston self-released his 2013 full-length debut Pnik Mxeico, which caught the attention of Austin-based label Fleeting Youth Records, who then re-released the album the following December.
Collum relocated to Brooklyn in the fall of 2014 to begin recording what would be his sophomore album. Following countless Brooklyn shows during the course of 2015, the project extended into a full-fledged band with the addition of Grady Walker (drums, vocals) and Ian Everall (bass). Collum’s Pink Mexico sophomore album, 2016’s Fool was released through Burger Records and French label Big Tomato Records. He and his bandmates supported the album with an opening spot for Honus Honus (a.k.a Mam Man) during that artist’s November 2016 tour.
Pink Mexico’s third album 2019’s DUMP was released through Burger Records and Little Dickamn Records. Unlike the previously released albums, where Collum played all the instrumental parts, DUMP is the first album that features Everall and Walker on their respective instruments.
The band’s fourth album, 2020’s Idiot Piss Illiterate was released through San Francisco-based label Broken Clover Records.
Earlier this year, Pink Mexico announced their signing to Quiet Panic Records, who will be releasing their fifth album, Mirrorhead. Slated for a May 19, 2023 release, Mirrorhead was written and recorded during the period of its predecessor’s release. But while Idiot Piss Illiterate‘s material rode on a frantic garage rock undercurrent, the forthcoming album reportedly swaps out ragged pace for bruising waves of heavy sound, interspersed with moments of stripped back exposure. Thematically, the album’s material is rooted in a recollection of memories and experiences woven through the reconstruction of the self and a bold sense of experimentation.
If you’ve bene frequenting this site, you might recall that earlier this month I wrote about Mirrorhead single “Dungeonhead,” a 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock-inspired aural assault centered around layers of reverb-drenched, fuzzy and distorted power chords and thunderous power chords paired with Collum’s plaintive and ethereal lead vocal. But under the ironically detached delivery and enormous hooks, is a song that evokes a palpable sense of unease.
Pink Mexico’s Robert Preston Collum calls “Dungeonhead,” “a track about never feeling comfortable in one’s own skin while reflecting on the obscurities of life during a time when the regular version of confusing and fucked up is even more fucked up and confusing.”
Mirrorhead‘s latest single “Shame” is a brooding bruiser built around layers of fuzzy and distorted power chords, thunderous drumming paired with Collum’s ethereal and achingly plaintive vocal. While continuing a run of material that sounds indebted to 120 Minutes-era MTV, “Shame” is imbued with a lived-in, bitter sense of shame, insecurity and self-loathing. “It’s a shame we as humans are so insecure and selfish that we’re incapable of having respect for one another,” Collum says. “The only undeniable certainties in this life are; no one decides to be born and we all die.”
The band will be playing an album release show at TV Eye on June 11, 2023 with TVOD, Substitute and a special guest TBA. Tickets and more info is available here.