The Garden like to make a spectacle of themselves. At a release party celebrating their 2018 album Mirror Might Steal Your Charm, the striking rock duo made a French circus tent their stage; the band’s members, identical twins Wyatt and Fletcher Shears, performed the show’s first half in face paint and medieval jester garb, an image that’s replicated in many of their music videos. They’re not just a band, this campy aesthetic seems to claim—they’re entertainers. And whether it’s in their off-the-wall live performances, their side gigs modeling for designers like Saint Laurent, or their irreverent brand of experimental punk, the Garden want your attention. Convention has never been their intent, and their new album Kiss My Super Bowl Ring is their most unorthodox release to date.
The Shears brothers formed the Garden as teenagers in 2011, taking early inspiration from eclectic ’80s punk group the Minutemen. They’ve since operated by a method they call “vada vada”: “total freedom of expression without boundaries or guidelines of any sort.” Kiss My Super Bowl Ring abides by that process, implementing unexpected electronic influences and enlisting left-field producers Dylan Brady of 100 gecs and WHARFWHIT of Kero Kero Bonito. Blown-out bass and jungle breakbeats give the album’s more computerized moments a clubbier feel, while the occasional thrashing drums and searing shrieks recall the band’s hardcore roots. Sprinkle in features from Ariel Pink and flashy New York rapper Le1f, and Super Bowl Ring attempts to wear many hats at once, a frenetic collection of songs that grapple with existential woes and cathartic rage.
The Garden sound best at their most upbeat, on songs like the rip-roaring “AMPM Truck,” where Wyatt’s melodic basslines and Fletcher’s snappy drumming take the forefront. At the opposite end of the spectrum, “Sneaky Devil” is loaded with anxiety-ridden industrial elements to inspire freaky dancing and open mosh pits. Songs like these embody the restless anxiety the twins divulge in their lyrics: “A struggle, if you wanna call it that/Hate to burst your bubble, but it is that,” Wyatt sings in the bouncy chorus of “A Struggle,” as if to apologize for disconcerting themes to come. “Sneaky Devil” is just one name-drop away from a diss track: “Fuck you, kid, now I have your address/And in a second I could put your racist ass to bed,” he taunts, after unintelligibly listing things he’s “sick of”—politicians, carbon footprints—with a fury that makes you wonder how long he’s been keeping his anger concealed. “AMPM Truck” reckons with life’s futility after a near-fatal instance of nodding off behind the steering wheel. For a band whose earlier work has bordered on sheer absurdity, the distress and malevolence of Super Bowl Ring feels particularly unnerving.
At times, the album can feel erratic. Its first tracks, “Clench to Stay Awake” and “A Struggle,” vacillate between multiple opposing themes with whiplash-inducing suddenness that ultimately sounds haphazard. Slower tracks like “A Fool’s Expedition” and “Lurkin’” plod along in comparison, lacking the frenzy of the album’s brighter moments. However uneven, Kiss My Super Bowl Ring is proudly defiant; the title, Wyatt has clarified, essentially means “kiss my ass.” But where deviation from the norm has spawned countless artistic geniuses, Super Bowl Ring too often comes off as just a hodgepodge of ideas. “Vada vada,” it seems, has hurt the Garden as much as it’s helped them.
Buy: Rough Trade
