Over the past year, I’ve written a bit about the Los Angeles, CA-based post-punk trio Second Still, and as you may recall the trio, comprised of founding members Ryan Walker (guitar) and Alex Hartman (bass) along with Suki San (vocals) can initially trace its origins to when its founding duo met in Los Angeles, back in 2007. By 2011 Walker and Hartman had relocated to New York, where they spent a great deal of time searching for a vocalist, who they felt could match their intensity and creative output, and as the story goes, when Walker and Hartman met Suki San, they felt an immediate connection and began working together.
Second Still’s first show was an infamous party at the now-condemned McKibbin Street Lofts that was shut down by the police during the band’s second song. Building upon the buzz of that incident, the band recorded their debut EP, Early Forms as a limited edition cassette, which quickly sold out. Making the most of their time, the members of the trio wrote and recorded the material that eventually comprised their 2017 self-titled, full-length debut — and from singles “Walls,” “Recover,” “You Two So Alike,” and “Strangers,” the album’s material thematically focused on decidedly post-modern subjects: depression, frustration, anxiety and alienation among a throbbing, seething mass of humanity, with a visceral and urgent emotionality, while sonically seeming to draw from Sixousie and the Banshees and the early catalog of renowned indie label 4AD Records.
Equals, the Los Angeles-based post punk trio’s much-anticipated follow-up EP finds the band expanding upon their sound, pushing it towards new directions — while retaining some of the early elements that first caught the attention of the blogosphere and elsewhere. You’ll see hear the chorus and delay pedal effected guitar, sinuous bass-driven grooves and industrial-like drum machine beats paired with ethereal vocals and infectious, razor sharp hooks; however, the members of the band have begun employing the use of a couple of analog synthesizers, which adds an atmospheric element to their sound. Additionally, roughly half of the EP’s material (the A side) reportedly finds he band exploring a decidedly pop-orientated, lighter sound while the other half (the B side) find site band hewing towards the melancholy and gloomy roots. The EP’s first single “Opening” was a decidedly melancholy post-punk track that to my ears will further their growing reputation for crafting a sound heavily indebted to early 80s post-punk with clean, modern production values, and unsurprisingly, the EP’s latest single “Automata” continues on a similar vein as its predecessor, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Sixousie and the Banshees’ “Israel,” and “Happy House” but with a subtle bit of moody atmospherics.
