Flat Worms don’t lack talent. Frontman Will Ivy is flanked by drummer Justin Sullivan (Kevin Morby, The Babies) and bassist Tim Hellman, who’s played with Ty Segall and Oh Sees. In late 2017, the Los Angeles garage rockers’ kinetic and scrappy self-titled debut delivered a fuzzed-out blitz with no real agenda. Three years on, they’ve upgraded their sound: Steve Albini and Segall co-man the desk at Electrical Audio, where the trio recorded their second album. The setup may be a rock nerd’s dream, but the cleaned-up sound doesn’t do them any favors; Antarctica is a dour proposal for a societal reset that winds up feeling distracted by hero worship.
Opener and lead single “The Aughts” makes for a promising start, melding the sneering spectre of latter-day Fall with Ivy’s pointed decrees. It’s a promise the album struggles to keep. Though Albini’s style suits the pummeling “Plastic Casts,” the shift from scorched earworms to taut, cookie-cutter post-punk becomes distracting. It’s one thing to ape a classic Albini recording like Shellac’s “Steady as She Goes” with an obvious homage like “Wet Concrete,” but on Albini’s own watch? He’d be within his rights to seek a secondary credit.
Thematically, Antarctica suggests a through-line between the chaos of modern society and the titular desolate continent. But many of these songs fumble the intent quite badly. “Market Forces” takes questionable aim at the state and mass media: “Personality cult chambers/Showcase the peacock feathers.” “Stick to the formula, turn out another/Four on the floor, the greatest night ever,” goes “Ripper One,” an admission of mediocrity as much as anything else. While Flat Worms’ punk heroes—like Mark E. Smith, or Nikki Sudden of Swell Maps—could wield ambiguity like a scythe, here empty words take center stage.
Warbly, woozed-out guitar forays help to blunt the lack of conviction. The seasick lead phrases on mid-album peak “Via” and the forcefield of feedback at the tail end of “The Aughts” ease the absence of the full-blown fuzz that made Flat Worms such a heady trip. The hand of Segall—who recorded the band’s The Apparition/Melt The Arms 7" and last year’s Into the Iris EP, and releases Antarctica via his Drag City imprint GOD? Records—surely plays a part in bringing these silver linings to light.
But to stand out in a supersaturated garage scene, Ivy and co. must command focus. The pencil-drawn analogy between Antarctica and the here-and-now isn’t exactly a reach, but the album’s perspective is blurry at best. Though Antarctica positions itself as an assessment of worldly chaos and isolation, it’s never clear whether the stance is earnest or apathetic. Even Albini-tier fidelity can’t make this formula sound fresh.
Buy: Rough Trade
