The members of Plosivs have been in the music industry long enough to know the importance of making themselves laugh. For starters, there’s their name: a preemptive joke for when the San Diego rock supergroup dissolves, claiming the right to “ex-Plosivs” as a descriptor. Singer-guitarist John Reis leapt from Pitchfork (the band, of course) to Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes; singer-guitarist Rob Crow reigns supreme in Pinback while churning out side-projects like the Ladies and Goblin Cock; after his long run in Rocket From the Crypt, drummer Atom Willard has served as the go-to timepiece in Against Me! and Alkaline Trio; and bassist Jordan Clark paid his dues in Mrs. Magician and the Frights. As their tongue-in-cheek name would imply, this side project isn’t about making it big—it’s about having fun and reigniting a creative spark away from the winds of expectations.
Plosivs released their self-titled debut early in 2022, still riding high on the post-isolation thrill of IRL collaboration. The album was quick on its feet, especially for a band led by two guys three decades into their music careers. Turns out the fractured ’90s punk that Reis helped usher in and the downer aughts indie-rock that Crow cultivated worked seamlessly together; standouts from that record played like long-lost singles from Hot Snakes and Pinback, but with a clearer understanding of how prickly guitar can hypnotize. With Willard and Clark nipping at their heels in a chase scene, the band’s primary songwriters sounded creatively revitalized and enthused.
That same energy fuels Plosivs’ return on YELL AT CLOUD. While their second album’s title pokes fun at their age, its sound takes a youthfully aggressive approach to rock. “Death Kicks In” and “Falls Equivalency,” the two opening tracks, barrel ahead with barbed guitar lines that wrap around each other in spirals. When Willard fires off drum fills and extra strikes, he hits the drum heads with military precision and force. It sounds like there’s a sergeant breathing down his neck—but it’s just Clark locking him in a gaze with his grounding basslines. Everyone but Willard split vocal duties, their voices intertwining as seamlessly as their guitar melodies to burst through the album’s perturbed mood with a glimmer of relief on “Civilized” and “Hello Gallows.”
Those vocal harmonies are a much-needed respite on YELL AT CLOUD, as Plosivs pack the record with troubled thoughts and fears of inevitable tragedy. In “Storm Machine,” Crow rattles off the foreboding visions haunting his dreams: daylight freezing over, a shark twisting fishing line in its teeth like floss, and a broken storm machine bellowing “All is lost!” When the band stacks vocal harmonies threefold during the song’s final, repeated line—“Take a piece of you home!”—it verges on angelic. Resigned to the truth that surviving in any state, even battered or hopeless, is better than ceasing to exist at all, Crow sings with optimism—perhaps his most youthful attribute. While characters in these songs burn mattresses and huff at tombstones, Crow can’t help but offer them at least one reason to soldier onward. “Water starts to rise/Not like you’re surprised/Swept away there, anyway,” he pitches on “Falls Equivalency,” focusing not on the flood survivor’s bad luck, but their hardened exterior. As he sings elsewhere in the song, it all comes down to how you handle the ultimatum: “Let it breathe or let it die.”
That sentiment becomes a much-needed reminder throughout YELL AT CLOUD. As Plosivs start losing steam in the album’s final suite of “Destroyed by Touch” and “Vintage Dated,” settling on subpar hooks and tempos that don’t do them any favors, their resolve shifts into apathy. It’s as if the band snapped back to post-pandemic reality like the rest of us: what began with a renewed appreciation for human-to-human collaboration and the arts as a lifeline begins to falter under the weight of bleak headlines. At their best, Plosivs can document the gloom through their interwoven guitar parts and fend it off with their words—a welcome reminder of why Reis and Crow are still two of underground rock’s most favored songwriters.
