Disco Doom - Mt. Surreal (2022)

Disco Doom is a Zurich-based band who have been active since 2002 when they released their first EP on their own record label, Defer Records. 20 years later, the band released Mt. Surreal - their 5th full length album - also released through their own Swiss record label but released in the US through Exploding In Sound Records out of Jersey City. 

I found out about this band as I've been recently obsessed the band Helvetia. Upon purchasing a Helvetia record on bandcamp, I see Disco Doom being personally recommended by Jason Albertini from Helvetia - who I would learn also played drums on Disco Doom's third full length, Trux Reverb, which was released in the US through The Static Cult Label, a label co-started by Duster's Clay Parton Albertini also played in Duster). 

So I give this album a listen and it's fucking great, as are the other releases by Disco Doom, who seem to only have gotten better with time. Weirdly enough, people don't really talk about this band. I can't find their album stocked in, supposedly wonderful, NJ record stores either despite being peddled by a local label. 

 

The band has an experimental indie rock vibe that's simultaneously minimal and psychedelic. They have moments where they are Built to Spill-esque if all the lushness was stripped away in favor of sparsity. They have toured with Built to Spill so this comparison might be too easy... I'm actually having a hard time finding a comparison. The music's very approachable but also slightly off-kilter and tense. Like Helvetia, they have a solid and steady rhythm section providing the canvas, but everything else ... the guitars, vocals and sonic ornamentation... is dripped and splattered across like paint from a saturated brush. It's not as chaotic as a Jackson Pollock, Disco Doom is more Pat Steir or Cy Twombly. 

Criminally underrated. 

8 songs.

Disco Doom - Mt. Surreal