This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Gen Z isn’t feeling good about housing. According to a recent paper by Northwestern University and University of Chicago researchers, centennials are “giving up” on homeownership. A 2024 Harris Poll found that 46% of Gen Z respondents agree with the statement that “no matter how hard [they] work, [they] will never be able to afford a home [they] really love.” The research speaks in economic terms, but the impact is psychological. Think of the constant, exhausting, lifelong uncertainty: Is making a home here—in a place I rent at the whims of someone else—worth it? Can I stay in this city forever? What if things go wrong? So when Robber Robber vocalist Nina Cates repeats “upend, upend” on “Avalanche Sound Effect,” it sounds like the voice in your head reminding you not to get too comfortable. At some point, you’ll just have to pack up and leave.
Robber Robber—the Burlington, Vermont, quartet of Nina Cates, Zack James, Will Krulak, and Carney Hemlers—know quite a bit about transience. The group recorded their sophomore album Two Wheels Move the Soul after Cates and James’ landlord decided to have their long-time home demolished. For months, the pair couch-surfed across Burlington while recording the record. Making the album became a source of solid ground amidst the turbulence of their living situation.
The band channeled all that stress in the studio. Its songs are coiled springs, bundles of potential energy that always threaten to unravel. “The Sound It Made” kicks things off with blown-out bass and steely guitar, and James’ hi-hats jangle like they’ve got extra metal rattling off them. Like their fellow experimental noisemakers YHWH Nailgun, Robber Robber is a drummer’s band: the exact tone of a snare-drum smack or air-pressure of a kick-drum are just as important melodic building blocks in their music as a guitar line. Just listen to the way James’ percussion snaps between an earthy live kit and processed breakbeats on “The Sound It Made,” the metallic smacks on “Talkback,” or how his beat on “Watch For Infection” presses forward relentlessly while Cates’s vocal line pulls back. Two Wheels is a feast for such drumming.
Everything on Two Wheels is textured and satisfyingly gritty, played like there’s dirt under the band’s fingernails and a tension headache keeping them awake at night. The 50-second “Imprint” is the only song here that could reasonably be described as “pretty,” and still, its guitars are too frayed and vocals too sardonic for the song to truly twinkle. On “It’s Perfect Out Here In The Sun,” the band’s unease spoils a picturesque park day. The guitars grate like rusty metal, and Cates sings like she’s trying not to step on a landmine. She repeats the assurance “It’s perfect out here!” like the everything’s fine meme. Inevitably, the landmine blows up: “It’s perfect out here in the sun,” she shouts over combustive guitars that hit like a lightning bolt. Cates’ voice is a particularly versatile instrument, playing with tone and timbre rather than range. She makes a meal out of the deadpan on “Talkback,” rolling her eyes over how much time she wasted trying to think of a perfect quip (“Hours later / hours later”).
Most of Two Wheels abandons typical song structures in favor of a continuous, high-grade simmer, and the band is careful about when to let things boil over. Mostly, they save it for the end. On closer “Bullseye,” the rubber band finally snaps, and Robber Robber unleashes the full potentiality of their molten guitars. It’s a satisfying, head-banging moment. But if anything on Two Wheels opts for a more typical rock format, it’s “New Year’s Eve.” The song is the best thing the band has put to tape, and it condenses their approach—crunchy guitars, swaggering drums, dry vocals, and late-stage capitalism-induced disillusionment—into a three-minute burst. “Baby where did all the time go? I was stuck here tryna make it work,” Cates panics, raising her voice against the threat of another year. Two Wheels Move The Soul is a study in the messy, exhausting, and often necessary effort of making it all work, despite the threat of upheaval. There’s a strange comfort to Robber Robber’s balancing act. [Fire Talk]
Andy Steiner is a writer and musician. When he’s not reviewing albums, you can find him collecting ‘80s Rush merchandise. Follow him on X.
