What Keeps Me Alive In This Hellish World
And on the song “Glitch,” when the momentum of the song shifts into a ferocious, swinging shuffle, Slut Intent’s lead singer, Katy Kelly, screams with an otherworldly, larynx-shredding howl, “Trigger hungry motherfuckers, hide behind your barricade.” And on the night I am supposed to see the band Slut Intent perform at Pillar Forum, Alex Pretti is murdered in broad daylight by ICE agents. He is shot ten times, within five seconds. His body, pinned down and motionless, on the sidewalk of Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. Down the street from a record store. Across the street from a donut shop.
And much was made of the fact that Pretti was armed at the time. He had a permit to carry, and had no criminal history. On Saturday, January 24th, he was on Nicollet Avenue as a constitutional observer, filming ICE activity with his mobile phone. And in the moment that he was shot, and killed, Alex Pretti had not drawn his weapon. His hand was nowhere near it, actually. The only thing he was holding was his telephone. And in the moment prior to the shooting, Pretti had come to the aid of another person on Nicollet Avenue—either observing, or protesting the continued ICE presence in Minneapolis—who he had witnessed being physically accosted by an ICE agent.
Seventeen days prior to this, Renee Good was also shot and killed in broad daylight in Minneapolis, by ICE agents. She was unarmed.
“What’s the reason you hide your face,” Katy Kelly snarls elsewhere in the same song. “Glitch.” Arriving at the halfway mark of Slut Intent’s debut full-length album, Slutworld. “Fucking cowards who turn away.”
And the information about Alex Pretti’s death spreads almost immediately. First, that there had been an incident. A shooting. And then, a short time later, he had died. And you watch it unfold, not in real time, but close, on social media. Video clips, filmed at slightly different angles of Pretti’s death, begin to circulate. And I make the mistake of watching one of them, while I sit at my dining room table, in my home, 40 miles south of the Twin Cities.
The video is in slow motion. I watch it with the sound off.
“Why did you do that,” my best friend, Alyssa, asks me, later that morning when she calls me. She and her husband and their young son are on the way to spend the day with her grandparents, and she receives push notifications on her phone about the shooting and when they have stopped for lunch, Alyssa takes a moment alone in the car to scream and then cry and then when she is composed herself as much as she is able to she calls me.
I ask her not to watch the video.
And the night I am supposed to see Slut Intent perform at Pillar Forum is not even noon and Alex Pretti is murdered and as you might anticipate the rest of the day feels heavy and uncertain. And there is a tension in Minneapolis. There has been a tension for weeks at this point and it is reported that nearly two dozen people who witnessed the shooting were taken into custody, and detained for hours, at the federally controlled Whipple Building. The temperature outside is frigid. And there are more demonstrations, and protests, and people in the streets and videos on Instagram from near where Pretti was shot show teargas being fired into the crowds as a means of attempted dispersal.
And I am restless in my home, 40 miles south of the Twin Cities and I continue to refresh the Instagram page for Pillar Forum and I wonder if there will be some kind of update or announcement and if the show will no longer be taking place as anticipated. I would expect it really and I would understand why they would cancel or postpone given the gravity of the day yes but also given the gravity of what has been happening in the Twin Cities for weeks at this point. And it is stupid, I realize this. Someone has died. Again. And I am wondering about my plans for the evening.
And I question if I should even go because for years I have had this difficulty attending events by myself and enjoying myself without being overcome by this feeling that is ultimately extremely hard for me to articulate. A kind of anxious loneliness. And in the past, for lack of any other description and out of ease, I used to call it “concert anxiety” but what I have come to understand is that there is more to it than that and it is something that I feel like I am always just on the cusp of understanding for myself and about myself, and then being able to explain it someone else, but I am not there yet. Maybe I never will be. And yet even with this feeling I try. I continue to try. I continue to purchase a single ticket to events and I will put that event on my calendar and before I convince myself otherwise my wish is always to have a good time and to have fun.
Nothing feels good anymore, you see. I think you understand. It hasn’t felt good for a long, long time before this moment and it won’t for a long, long time after. And because of that I have found myself clutching onto the smallest things, you see. These thin fraying shreds of hope or a kind of optimism and that maybe just maybe it isn’t always going to feel the way that it does now. This moment I am in. This moment you are in with me. A slow descent at year’s end, and where I have remained as the new year began.
Because the night I am supposed to see Slut Intent perform at Pillar Forum and before Alex Pretti is murdered and before the day becomes uncertain and heavy, I had felt a glimmer of enthusiasm. Because I had intentions you see. To drive 40 miles north and to find something to eat for dinner and to take my time browsing in a record store before making my way over to the venue but the record store, Extreme Noise, which specializes primarily in punk and melted records is, like, a mile away from where Pretti was murdered and I must acknowledge as the time of departure from home grows closer that it would not behoove me to drive directly into this part of the city.
Not tonight.
And I am early of course when I arrive at Pillar Forum. Always early always punctual to a fault. And the show is still happening as scheduled. Pillar is both a coffee shop and a skateboard shop with a small event space housed within an adjoining room. And while I wait for my drink, my eyes scan the walls at the skateboards and accessories and clothing and there is a shelf with free supplies for protestors and constitutional observers with whistles and masks and hand warmers and below that there are boxes and bags filled with donations of nonperishable groceries for families that have been impacted by the surging ICE presence in the area.
The show itself is a benefit, with the proceeds from ticket sales going to Lake Street Food Distribution.
And it’s dark and noisy in the concert space at Pillar. The sound of the pre-show music filling the air and muffling the chatter of the others standing and waiting. And it isn’t a sparse crowd. Not really. But what I have come to understand is that at a punk show there is this hesitancy and rightfully so to filing in close to the stage, even after the band has taken to the stage. Everyone is standing and fidgeting to the sides or near the back of the room. And in positioning myself in front of the soundboard, leaning against the wall, yeah, I begin to feel that anxious loneliness. Something that I am always on the cusp of understanding for myself and about myself and be able to explain to others but I’m not there and I don’t think I will get there tonight. I have no place to put my bulky winter jacket and I wonder if I should have left it in the car. I am uncomfortable and I feel foolish as I pull out a copy of Chloe Caldwell’s essay collection I’ll Tell You in The Morning from my coat’s large pocket. And the temperature of my drink plummets with each sip, and I try to find a small pool of light to stand in, and read, before the show begins. Because I try. I continue trying. I purchase a single ticket for myself and I put these events on my calendar and before I convince myself otherwise, my wish is to have a good time. To have fun.
And I look at the man standing next to me who is also leaning against the wall and yeah in a sense we are similar at least physically. We are of similar height and we are both wearing glasses and we both have stocking caps covering our heads and I wonder how else we might be similar because maybe we are similar in age and we are both seemingly alone at Pillar Forum and I wonder if he like me has to try. I wonder if he like me experiences a descent into a difficult-to-describe anxiousness and loneliness and if he like me also purchases a single ticket for events and puts them on his own calendar and if he like me, as quickly as I am able to, convinces himself that he will not have a good time.
And there has been a misunderstanding on my part. I realize it slowly. The show it slated to begin at 7:30 and as the time approaches I notice a member of Slut Intent hauling a bass amp through the room, hoisting it onto the stage, only for someone else—a young man with a mustache, wearing a bolo tie, to begin adjusting the settings and equalizer on it, to meet the needs of his bass guitar. There’s been a misunderstanding you see about how the evening will unfold. About the order in which the bands will perform. Presumptuous really on my part because the night I am supposed to see Slut Intent perform at Pillar Forum I am erroneous in thinking they will be up first but what I am disappointed and frustrated to discover is that they will be taking the stage last.
And the band that comes on first is Flyover States and before they begin the lead singer and guitarist address the room as best as he is able to in acknowledging the heaviness of the day and explains that if for some reason there is an ICE presence within the venue during the evening’s event, there are places within the building tha people can escape to for safety.
And yeah, I would like to believe that perhaps under different circumstances this misunderstanding would not have affected me as much as it did. If the day itself had not been marred by the murder of a civilian and if there had not been this unspeakable weight and uncertainty still very present and hanging over everything. And if I had perhaps just prepared myself for a later night out than what I had originally anticipated. If I had made some kind of accommodations for myself. Or, if I were not someone for years now, who had difficulty attending events alone and enjoying myself without being overcome with a feeling that is so hard to articulate. An anxious loneliness tugging away. And it is feeling that I am always on the cusp of both understanding about myself and for myself and being able to explain to someone see but I am not quite there yet and on a Saturday night in January standing against the wall of Pillar Forum while the band I did not wish to watch takes the stage I am not there and maybe I will never get there. And even with this feeling I try. I am always trying. I continue to purchase a single ticket, and before I have convinced myself that I have made a mistake and that it was a stupid idea in the first place, my wish is to always have a good time.
And yes I would like to believe that perhaps under different circumstances I would have more grace and certainly more patience that I would not feel a sinister vibe coming from Flyover States’ bassist. The young man with a mop of black hair on his head and a mustache and a bolo tie because he has this mischievous grin on his face that I don’t trust. Prior to his appearance on stage, I could see him looming near the backstage area, jittery and obnoxious. His presence on stage is similar and he has been selected, unbeknownst, as my nemesis for the evening. And yeah maybe none of this would have bothered me in the slightest if I were a better sport or if I were a little easier going or if I had a different kind of constitution than the one I find myself with. And Flyover States begin to play the first song of their set and the bassist, my nemesis for the night, antagonizes the audience in a way that is not charming as he encouraging those members of the audience who are standing and fidgeting in the dark near the back of the room to come closer to the stage and to let loose and to open up the fucking pit as is commonly said in situations like this one. And the fucking pit is in fact opened up, and a handful of young bodies begin to flail with an abandon that I admire, two-stepping and throwing themselves into one another.
And in the fury a young woman is knocked into me and she falls back and as sh elands she knocks over the small paper cup with the cold dregs of me drink left in it and I try to shout over the noise to ask if she is okay and as she gets up to rejoin her friends I wonder if she managed to avoid sitting in any of the spilled remains of my my lattes.
And the fucking pit is opened up and I have to marvel at it briefly. The unabashed and unselfconscious way the participants simply let go in the moment. And there is a politeness or a care though found within because within the commotion someone loses a piece of jewelry. A watch. And it is held up high in the air until it is claimed by its owner and placed in their pocket, and the two-stepping and the flailing restarts, and I think of my own body and how aware of it I am all of the time. The discomfort radiating from my spine every day and I wonder if I could even for just a few moments simply let go like this. Loosen the grip I have on myself and propel myself into a stranger in the darkness and move my arms and legs in a way that at least to my eyes looks unnatural and awkward but to be the one who is in motion.
I can only imagine how cathartic it feels.
And I wonder if I could ever let go.
And after two or three songs I retreat from the wall, near the stage, and I watch the remainder of Flyover States’ set from the back of the room and it is when they’ve finished and the next band is beginning to set up on stage that I hesitantly approach the venue’s sound technician and ask him about the order of the rest of the bands for the evening and he tells me that Slut Intent is on last and maybe that would not have bothered me or effected me as much as it did if I were a better sort or a more patient individual or had a different constitution than the one that I so often find myself with but tonight I do not have the patience to stand uncomfortably with my bulky winter jacket on to feign interest in two additional bands and to continue seeking refuged from the violent undulation near the front of the stage.
Because I try. Sometimes it works out. And this is a time when it does not, and the January night sky is black and starless, and the temperature is frigid, and on the wall of a building near where I parked, someone has spray-painted “Fuck ICE.”
And I drive home and the silence of the darkness and of the night is all I can hear in the car.
*
And it’s near the end of the album, when the rhythm of the song “Girls Night” slows itself down into this intense, simmering trudge, that through gritted teeth, Katy Kelly seethes, “Torches to the cop cars—that’s the way this goes.”
And, I mean, nothing feels good anymore. It hasn’t for a long time before this. As the year came to an end and the new one began. And I mean it still doesn’t, now, in this moment. Not really, I don’t think. Not even as we continue to move further away from who we were yesterday, or last week, or last month. And we wait for something to change within. A shift. And even in our desperate pleading to someone or to something it never comes.
And there is a frustration. At least for me. Maybe for you, as well. Maybe you understand. A restlessness. An uncertainty. Sometimes a deep dissatisfaction or unhappiness. And yes of course there are moments when it does all lift or recede slightly but what I have to acknowledge and as disappointing as it is to admit—those moments are fleeting. And there is this reality. There is this sorrow and this sadness and this darkness and sometimes it does seem impossible that I will ever find my way to the other side of it even though I try. I am trying.
And yes, nothing feels good anymore and yeah I am of course talking about myself, and my experiences and how yes there is really no cure for the human condition but there is this heaviness and this unease and these atrocities happening just outside of ourselves and I am unwilling and unable to turn my gaze as a means of avoidance. And nothing feels good anymore. It just hasn’t for such a long time now and it still does not in this moment and I find myself, as I found myself as one year came to an end and a new one was just beginning, where I am seeking comfort in small, good things. Where I’m clutching as tightly as I’m able to the thin, fraying shreds of hope, or a kind of optimism. I am clutching to the belief and I do have to believe that it isn’t always going to feel the way that it does right now. And what I recognize or at least try to recognize every day is that we have so much to be grateful for, even though there are often days when it does not feel like we do. There are the days when gratitude or appreciation feels like painful stretches towards something that is just out of reach.
And there is this allure of course. And that is where I did find myself at year’s end and it is where I find myself still, today. And I am remiss or hesitant to describe it as a seduction but yes there is something about it. There is something about the abrasive and confrontational nature of punk rock and of hardcore and of the adjacencies within the genre. Because even in how unwelcoming or unapproachable it might appear at first, I find more and more that it continues to beckon. It continues to compel me so.
And yes the band’s name of course commands your attention. Slut Intent. The way it sounds when you say it, out loud. There is an edge to it both literal and figurative. And so yes it is the band’s name that catches my attention, five days into the new year, when I see the headline and read the accompanying blurb—“Stream Slut Intent’s Uproarious Debut Album Slutworld.”
And there is this self-awareness with punk and hardcore bands. I mean, there has to be. This line that is carefully walked between taking yourself seriously, and wishing to be taken seriously with what you are doing, or creating, all while maintaining as much of a sense of humor about it all as you are able to do. It’s not looking for the absurdity, exactly, but it is an understanding and an acknowledgment that there are these places for levity. And I do not contend, at all, that it is easy to find that balance, let alone sustain it, but for 18 minutes—18 fucking minutes—Slut Intent makes it sound absolutely effortless.
And there is and it is probably to be expected a punching and unrelenting and visceral intensity found from beginning to end on Slutworld—from the first, playful, kind of rollicking notes strummed out on the blistering opening track, “Peppa Pig,” to the slow, angsty descent into feedback that occurs near the end of its final track, “Girls Night,” the band rarely, if ever, wishes to loosen its grip and let you up for air. And it is a remarkable statement. Impeccable and admirable in the dextrous nature with which the band plays and the dynamism present in each of the album’s nine tracks. And it is a restless album. It plays like a house on fire. The songs, often the end of one colliding headfirst into the beginning of the next, continue to violently writhe and shift even after they get underway, ever changing in tempo and intensity.
I don’t think I would use the word uproarious to describe Slutworld. Though I guess, after spending a number of months immersing myself in it further and further, I would agree. There is an uproarious nature to it. That’s the balance to strike though, isn't it. Because even at its most abrasive or confrontational moments, it is an uproarious record that is undeniably fun as hell to listen to. And it is very, very clear that the band is having fun playing these songs, and channeling their angst and frustration into something that is so explosive. It beckons. And it compels. And in doing that, Slutworld wants you to have fun as you listen.
Because I have said as much before about how I listen and how I listen analytically. And there are of course myriad ways to listen to and enjoy and give consideration to contemporary popular music. I am a lyrics-based listener, and what I have come to understand is that I have been a lyrics-based listener for much of my life, long before I began writing critically about pop music. I listen, yes, as a means of wishing to understand and appreciate the songwriter’s intentions, but I also listen for myself. I am always looking for a way in. And it is self-centered. I understand that. If not self-centered, then perhaps at times it is misguided. This attempt. I am always searching for the unflattering reflection of myself that a song might ask me to confront.
And what I have come in time to understand and I still struggle with it certainly is that not everything—not every song, not every album, not every artist performing, has a preoccupation with lyricism. And there is a way, of course, though it presents me, as someone who writes analytically about pop music, with a challenge in terms of giving consideration, to appreciate and wholeheartedly enjoy music that is intentionally structured around the idea of the whole. Music that is based around “a vibe.” A feeling. A sensation conjured from all of the elements presented being of equal importance and then converging.
And I would contend that this is the best way to experience or enjoy a majority of punk, or hardcore albums. Even within the poignancy and timeliness of the lyricism found on Slutworld, it is an album that is meticulously constructed around this vibe. Or this feeling. This sensation that Slut Intent wants to not only immerse you in but also fucking drown you in. It’s intense. It’s sometimes uncomfortable. Though, at least for me, and maybe for you, too, if you spend more time with it, there is something assuring about it. Thrilling. The allure of it. The way it beckons and compels. You begin to listen and you are ultimately transfixed by what you hear.
It is uproarious, sure, and fun as hell to experience, but what does compel me the most is the impressive ferocity throughout Slutworld, both musically and lyrically, with the group often leaning into the kind of self-aware theatricality that does come with playing punk and hardcore music. Because often I have found there is this very ramshackle nature to punk music—like things sound as if they are on the verge of falling apart at any moment. Slut Intent, however, perform with a precision and intelligence that is beyond razor sharp, with the restlessness of this material never allowing it to settle into any kind of predictably, propelled forward by the enormous, distended snarls of Elena Bittner’s and Kailyn Grider’s guitars, the fuzzed out slicing of Astrid Pulse’s bass notes, and the thundering, breakneck, pummeling percussion from Cara Hagstom-Skalnek.
In her review of Slutworld for Pitchfork, writer Nina Corcoran opens by reflecting on the societally and politically charged commentary within the lyricism on the album. “If political art becomes more timely post-release, it’s usually because the injustices it addresses began long before they rose to broader public consciousness,” she writes, later adding that “cruelty and betrayal” depicted in the single, “Peppa Pig,” originally released in 2024, “ring even clearer today."
And that is the thing. One of the things that is so striking about Slutworld. That in the uproarious and volatile theatricality—in the fun that is having, and in the fun it wishes for us to have as well, there are these startling observations and chilling, eerie depictions found within the writing.
Three of the five members of the group, Kelly, Grider, and Pulse, are credited as writers within the album’s liner notes, and across the album’s incredibly tight 18 minutes, Slut Intent absolutely refuses to hold back in confronting, head-on, any and all injustices they happen to lay eyes upon. I am remiss to say that punk lyricism isn’t thoughtful, because that isn’t true. But it is truly refreshing, and thrilling, to hear a band that is willing to use its platform as a means of speaking up and speaking out. “I can’t say this politely,” Kelly screams on the raucous caterwauling “Bonkers Even,” which is extremely blunt in its reflection on bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. “You have a hard-on for death. Don’t claim to be pro-life. You just wanna decide who gets a gun, and who gets the end of the barrel.”
Then later, when the song shifts in rhythm, slowing itself down into a fist-pumping, head-banging thrash, she howls, “I never wanna procreate. Your god can get in fucking line. I never wanna procreate,” she screams again before punctuating it with, “And I have every right—I’ll fight back.”
And there is, as perhaps expected, given the nature of the album, and how it sounds, a violence found and depicted throughout. And sometimes it is a violence observed. Though it can be a violence inflicted, or directed with more specificity. “No spatial awareness—you crossed another fucking line,” Kelly warns on “Hand Sanitizer,” before adding, “Don’t you waste my fucking time.”
“I’ll put that belt tight around your neck—watch you scream, watch you bleed,” she seethes one song earlier, on “Mr. Chariot.” “What the fuck do you want? You took my life, and now I’ll take yours. Speak one more word, it’ll be your last.”
Most pointed, and most confrontational, is the song “Acrylics,” which takes startlingly direct aim at rapist apologists and defenders—depicted as individuals that members of the group know, or have interacted with, based on the song’s final line. “This culture’s a noxious disease—who needs nazis when you’ve got friends like these,” Kelly growls, with a torrent of snarly guitar chords and thundering percussion undulating just beneath her.
And it is, yes, an uproarious album, from beginning to end. And it is, I think, intended to be listened to uninterrupted—there is little room to breathe in between songs. But Slutworld I think is most successful, or most compelling and genuinely interesting, when it is providing these truly and deservedly scathing indictments that are, unfortunately, very of this moment. And there is of course an urgency or an immediacy to how the album moves, and sounds, and feels, because it is so aggressive, and noisy, but there is also this emergent nature to some of these songs, because in the face of continued atrocities, Slut Intent are offering this real-time rebuttal.
Because there is of course something very of this moment in a line like “Run away, run away from fear—you are not fucking welcome here,” which Kelly howls in the album’s opening track, the charmingly titled “Peppa Pig.” But even in a declaration like this, or “You think you’re smart. You think you’re sly. But in the end it’s all a lie,” the song is a reflection on a more personal experience. “In sickness and in health—you were never there,” she barks early in the song. “Pull the knife out of my back and stick it in my fucking chest.”
And yes it is an uproarious album. Razor sharp in its intelligence and in its precision. And in that precision, and intelligence, and uproariousness, with how abrasive it can be, it is surprisingly and wildly infectious. And yes, the rhythms and tempos shift without much warning and it can be a challenge at times to both literally and figuratively keep up with the direction a song can be heading at any given moment but even in this restlessness, there are still these places where Slut Intent are very aware of a pop sensibility. “Peppa Pig” is one of those moments, in just how rollicking and playful it is from the moment it begins; “Acrylics” is like that too, in the progression it sustains and the structure that it adheres to.
And within all of that, there are these reflections. These scathing indictments and observations that point out the injustices and inequities that were, of course, happening before now, but they are very much of this moment. And in that sense, Slutworld does become a haunting soundtrack.
“Some days I wonder what keeps me alive in this hellish world,” Katy bellows with an otherworldliness on “Slut Internet,” the album’s explosive, skittering second track. “Where these greedy fucks gouge every ounce of value from every poor soul trying to survive.” And these sentiments present themselves again, in the album’s stunning closing track, “Girls Night”—“People begging because they can’t afford the bills. Got you running for your mansions in the hills. You don’t like inside the properties you build—you make it so easy to go in for the kill.”
And yes it is uproarious. Razor sharp in the precision and in thought. It is abrasive. Confrontational. Aggressive. It has to be. It must be. Because it becomes a haunting soundtrack. “What’s the reason you hide your face? Fucking cowards who turn away,” Kelly yells on “Glitch,” before seething, “Trigger hungry motherfuckers—hide behind your barricade. Trip over your power fantasies into our blades.”
“Voices on your front yard—cracks upon your windows,” Kelly whispers with malice in her voice in “Girls Night,” in the moment when the tension builds towards the point where it simply can no longer be restrained.
“Torches to the cop cars—that’s the way this goes.”
And I mean nothing feels good anymore. It hasn’t for a long time before this. As the year came to an end and this one began. It still doesn’t, now, in this moment. Some days I do wonder what keeps me alive in this hellish world. There is this frustration and restlessness and uncertainty and this deep, deep dissatisfaction, or this unhappiness. There are moments where it does lift, or recede slightly. And what I have to acknowledge, and as disappointing as it is to admit, those moments are fleeting. And there is this reality. There is sorrow and sadness and darkness and sometimes it seems impossible that I will ever find my way to the other side. And in this sorrow and sadness and darkness I find myself now in this moment as I have found myself before where I am seeking comfort in small good things. Where I am clutching as tightly as I am able to to the thin, fraying shreds of hope, or a kind of optimism, and I am clutching to the belief, and I do have to believe that it isn’t always going to feel the way that it does now. And there are the atrocities around us that I will not turn away from. I cannot fathom how anyone can.
And what I recognize, or at least try to recognize every day, is that we do really have so much to be grateful for, even though there are often days when it does not feel like we do. There are days when gratitude or appreciation feels like painful stretches towards something that will remain out of reach and there are days when I do wonder what keeps me alive. The world is hellish. And in this hellish world, and I think about the last thing that Katy Kelly growls, her voice low and guttural, in the final, trudging, pounding moments of “Girls Night.”
“Someday soon, we’ll reach the end.”
* * *
And I almost don’t go. Because yes, I continue to try. Oh I try. I buy a single ticket and put the event on my calendar and yes sometimes I am able to sustain the enthusiasm in the days just before. Sometimes it feels okay. These fleeting moments where things lift or recede. But nothing feels good anymore. It hasn’t for a long time. And it is how I found myself as the year came to an end and it is still, months into the new year, where I often still find myself. There’s a frustration and a restlessness and an uncertainty. There is this deep dissatisfaction. Yes. Sometimes a dissatisfaction with others but most of the time it is this dissatisfaction with myself. And I continue to grow more resentful of the rhythm of our lives these days. This phrase or this idea or this experience. Whatever. Whatever it is that propels us from the morning, through the afternoon, into the evening. The rhythm of our lives these days. I find myself returning to that more often than I wish to. I find myself in these instances when it, once again, feels like everything is just entirely too much.
And I almost don’t go. A Tuesday night. Early March. The Turf Club in St. Paul. It’s cold out—the wind cuts through me. Later, when I leave, it’s snowing. The flakes are small. Specks, really. It falls lightly. The sky is black and starless in the city and the snow, illuminated briefly by the streetlights, glistens in the air just above me. Snowing just enough that the pavement is wet as I drive away. Snowing just enough overnight that, in the morning, I must brush the evidence off my car.
And I almost don’t go. And, I mean, it would have been fine if I had chosen not to. The stakes, ultimately, are low. I try. But I also, so easily, resign myself. But I am encouraged to go. Not pushed. Gently nudged. I spend part of the afternoon with my best friend, Alyssa. Her home, only three miles from where the concert is. While she finishes work, I walk to the corner store in her neighborhood to buy what is needed to prepare our dinner, then despite her protesting, I busy myself in the kitchen and when her workday has concluded we drive to pick up her son from school. He oscillates, quickly, between a silliness simply because I am present, and a disagreeability that comes from being a five-year-old.
He leads us through the labyrinth to where his cubby is located, and he calls me “Kevy Baby,” cackling at himself.
And nothing feels good anymore. It hasn’t for some time. And this is why I almost don’t go. Whatever loose, fraying strands of enthusiasm, or excitement, that I had perhaps clutched onto, then slipping right through my fingers the day prior. And, yes, it is not lost on me, then, when I give this consideration later on because the title of the band Giallo’s debut full-length,
Tenebrarum, more or less directly translates to the word “darkness,” and it is not lost on me when, in looking up the word online, another suggested definition offered is the expression “return to the abyss.”
And, yes, I almost don’t go. Because on the phone, the day before, I tell Alyssa that I am uncertain how I feel. I try but I also so easily and so quickly resign myself and something that I am grateful for amongst all of the things that I am grateful for in my friendship with Alyssa is how she does encourage. It’s never a push. A gentle nudge. There is an awareness of the fragility. An acknowledgement and an understanding.
And on the phone, I tell Alyssa that I am uncertain how I feel, and by that yes I do mean I am uncertain how I am feeling about the prospect of attending a concert, alone, on a Tuesday evening. I am uncertain, because in the moment, and even in the moment, on Tuesday, when I am leaving her home and getting into my car to drive to the Turf Club, things as they often do, feel impossible. It’s never a push. A gentle nudge. And on the phone Alyssa asks me as she has asked countless times before and will most certainly ask me again in conversations we have not had yet, “What’s up with you,” and what I tell her is what she already knows and perhaps has braced herself, on the other end of the call to hear. Because it is difficult to articulate. Humbling to admit. The vulnerability and trust required to make the admission.
It isn’t lost on me that one of the suggested definitions offered of the word “Tenebrarum” is “return to the abyss.”
Nothing feels good anymore. It hasn’t for a long time before this. As the year came to an end, and the one we are in, right now, began. And yes, there are moments when it does lift, or recedes slightly. And I try. Oh, I try to exist in that recession, but what I acknowledge, and as disappointing as it is to admit, is that those moments are fleeting, and there is this reality in which I live, and perhaps you, too, experience this or understand as you are able. The frustration and restlessness and the uncertainty and the deep dissatisfaction and the slow and the sadness and a darkness. A return to the abyss. And it does sometimes seem fucking impossible that I will ever find my way to the other side of this.
And I am seeking comfort in small, good things, where I can find them. When I can find them. If I can find them. Clutching tightly.
And as I stand in the Turf Club, on a Tuesday night, in early March—the event I bought a single ticket for, and put on my calendar, and not with a push but with a gentle, assuring and encouraging nudge, I try. Oh I try. I try as I clumsily hold onto the merchandise I have already purchased for one of the four bands on the bill for the evening. I try as figure out where to safely position myself in the venue, close to the stage but not in harm’s way for when the fucking pit inevitably is demanded to be opened up and I try, as I wait for Giallo to arrive on stage at 7 p.m., not to be overcome with the feeling that is, like a number of feelings I realize, hard for me to articulate. A kind of anxious loneliness. I used to call it “concert anxiety” you see but I inherently have little to be anxious about tonight. That is the reality. The stakes are low, and I have done my best to be set up for success and offered accommodations because the guest room in Alyssa’s home is waiting for me whenever I decide I am finished at this concert.
There is always so much more to it. This feeling. Any feeling. And it is something that I so often feel like I am on the cusp of being able to understand for myself and about myself and then being able to explain it to someone else, but I am not there yet. Maybe I never will be. Before I convince myself otherwise, my wish is to have a good time. To have fun. I am trying.
And later, after he lumbers off stage and makes his way through the crowd in order to plunk down in a chair crammed behind the half of a table where Giallo’s merch is arranged, I tell Jake Van Kempen, in the small talk exchanged when the wall is broken between the artist or the performer and the listener or the fan, that I am having the time of my life and when the words leave my mouth I realize that it is an odd thing to say to but in saying it, it is not hyperbolic because there is this moment and even though I understand it is fleeting I want to exist in it and I want to try.
There is this moment, and it is exhilarating. There is this thrill. In trying. In letting go as much as you are able to. Because you see there is this allure. And I am remiss to refer to it as a seduction. But there is something about it. About the abrasive and confrontational nature of punk and hardcore and the adjacencies within the genre, because even in how unwelcoming or unapproachable it might appear at first, I do find more and more that it continues to beckon, and it continues to be something that compels me.
And on a Tuesday night in early March at the Turf Club, Giallo’s live set lasts all of, like 20 minutes and yes maybe that is because they are the first act on stage and there are still three other bands that will be performing before the night is over, but I also wonder if 20 minutes is all the band is realistically able to sustain given just how punishingly intense it is. There is a meticulousness yes, and a precision. And focus. There has to be. But in just how frenetically the band is playing, and in this space where the elements are noisily and aggressively colliding into one another, there is this unpredictability. The ramshackle nature of punk and hardcore. It could tumble to pieces at any moment in the blistering ferocity unfolding. It never does. It is remarkable how it is held together and how it is sustained for even just 20 minutes.
And there is this moment. Compelling and rapturous to bear witness to. A letting go. Something wondrous. The visceral and ultimately cathartic nature. The breakneck speed with which Gialllo’s drummer pummels the drum kit he sits behind. A brilliant, tumbling cacophony that somehow manages to maintain the unrelenting rhythm that both the low, throbbing bass notes, plucked out with precision and dexterity, and the squalling walls of feedback and torrential, distorted guitar chords fold themselves into with what appears to be an effortlessness.
And there is this moment. A breathlessness. Giallo’s frontman, Jake Van Kempen literally stalks around the stage while the band’s guitarist and bassist¹ flank him on either side in front of their respective amps. And after the band’s set, when Van Kempen wanders through the crowd and plunks down at the chair behind the band’s merchandise, he is surprisingly soft spoken. He’s warm and genuine in the moment where the wall between the artist or the performer and the fan or the listener is temporarily broken. He is good-natured, in that moment. I tell him I enjoyed the band’s set and he asks my name after he’s found the size small t-shirt I inquired after. Warm, genuine. Good-natured. And in that warmth and good nature, there is an exhaustion. And rightfully so. He, and the rest of Giallo, have just surrendered to something for, like 20 minutes on stage, and in doing so, they ask us to surrender to it as well.
This compulsion. The abrasion and the confrontation. It beckons.
And on a Tuesday night in early March at the Turf Club, Van Kempen stalks around on stage. He flails and writhes. He extends his leg out, planting the sole of his shoe in the center of the chest of someone in the audience who stands near the monitors at the edge of the stage. He sometimes holds the microphone with both hands, the cable connected to it whipping around wildly, while he growls and screams in a cadence that is truly not of this world—guttural does not describe the sounds he is capable of producing, or where, within him, they might be coming from.
And there is something beautiful in the noise. In the fury. It is aggressive and intense and punk and hardcore and bands that fall into the adjacencies can certainly and maybe often do keep you at an arm’s length. But in the stalking, and the growling, and the blistering pummeling rhythms and the ear-splitting bursts of feedback, I find a kind of comfort. An assurance. The small good thing. The hope that I am always clutching onto. That things might not always feel the way they do now and they have felt this way for so long. The allure. The compulsion. The moment. It is fleeting. I understand that. But for a little while, I am there. And I am trying. I try.
*
And, yeah, I mean I would not use the word uproarious to describe Giallo’s full-length debut,
Tenebrarum. Though after seeing the band tear through their live set, and in spending time with the album and immersing myself in it, and its murkiness, further and further, I would agree. There is, as there is with a lot of punk and hardcore music, an uproarious nature. And that’s the balance to strike. Because even in how utterly abrasive and unrelenting and unsettling as it often is, in all of that, it is a record that is, again, like a lot of punk albums I have found myself compelled by in the last year, undeniably fun as hell to listen to. And it is very clear that even as intense and aggressive as Tenebrarum is, Gialo are having a lot of fun playing these songs. Tapping into something imaginative. Something otherworldly. It is explosive. It beckons. It wants you to have fun, and tap into these things, as well, as you listen.
And I have said as much before about how I listen, and how I listen analytically. And there are myriad ways to listen and enjoy and to give thoughtful consideration to contemporary popular music. I am a lyrics-based listener. And I understand that I have listened that way for much of my life. Much longer than I have been writing critically about pop music. I listen, yes, as a means of understanding and appreciating the songwriter’s intentions but I also listen for myself. I am always looking for the way in. And I acknowledge that it is self-centered. And if not self-centered, then maybe just misguided. This attempt. This searching for the unflattering reflection of myself that a song might ask me to confront.
And yes in time what I have come to understand and yes I certainly still struggle with it and that is not everything—not every song or album or artist performing as a preoccupation with lyricism. And there is a way, of course, though it does present me as someone who analytically writes about pop music, with a challenge in terms of giving consideration and to appreciate and wholeheartedly enjoy music that is structured around the idea of the whole. Music that is based around a “vibe.” A feeling. A sensation conjured from all of the elements presented being of equal importance and then converging.
And I would contend that this is the best way to experience or enjoy a majority of punk or hardcore albums. Tenebrarum, for all of 22 minutes, spread across a dozen tracks, two of which are barely over 30 seconds in length, is meticulously constructed around a vibe, or a feeling that Giallo not only wants to fucking drown you in but also leave you for dead. Intense, or relentless, are words, yes, and you may use them, but I would argue they do not even begin to describe both the way this album sounds and also how it feels the second it begins. It is truly discomforting. For me, though, and maybe for you as well if you spend more time with it, like seeing the band, on stage, ripping through their set, there is something assuring about it. Thrilling. There is this allure to it. The way it beckons and compels and when you begin listening you are ultimately transfixed by what you hear.
And yes there is this self-awareness with punk and hardcore. There has to be. This line carefully walked between taking yourself and what you are doing seriously, all while maintaining as much of a sense of humor about it all as you are able to. It isn’t looking for the absurd but it is an understanding that there is a place for levity. I don’t contend that it is easy to find that balance, or sustain it.
Giallo has a theatricality. A commitment. It isn’t an “act,” really, but there is a presentation that occurs. This suspension of disbelief. And these personas adopted that are perhaps exaggerated or heightened. Giallo, as a band, exists in a kind of darkness, or bleakness, in terms of yes the oppressive and overwhelming nature of how they sound, but also in their aesthetic, and Tenebrarum, then, thrives in that darkness. A return to the abyss. And this is part of the allure of course. The fascination. There is the edge and the desire to know more about what occurs deep within the shadows cast.
The word “Giallo” is a reference to a specific type of Italian film popular in the 1960s and into the 1970s—later, an influence on the slasher genre, Giallos were murder mystery horror-thrillers that blended elements of “thriller fiction with elements of horror fiction and eroticism.” And the look of Tenebrarum—its sleeve art, and the photographs in the liner notes, is less directly inspired by this, but on the band’s self-titled debut EP, released in 2022, the homage is much more apparent. An illustration of a faceless man, cloaked in black, clutching a slim razor blade graces the EP’s cover—a direct reference to the antagonist from a 1964 film, Blood and Black Lace.
There is a starkness to Tenebrarum’s cover art. Black and white. The faces of two women on an old television screen. Hands, encased in black leather gloves coming around the top and bottom of the monitor, creating an embrace that is obsessive and unsettling. The same slim razor blade, tightly clutched within the right hand.
And there is this heaviness, and this very intentionally curated, nightmarish quality to portions of Tenebrarum. Specifically the instrumental pieces that serve as bookends for the record, both of which are produced by the Minneapolis “power electronics” duo Terror Cell Unit. The short intro, “Silentium,” even in how self-aware and a little campy it is in the drama that swirls within its 60 seconds and change, effortlessly conjures this fuzzy, antiquated horror film sensation through eerie scrapes of feedback, with low buzzy rumbles and cavernous, itchy skittering sounds. And then the penultimate track, “Broken Mirrors and Broken Minds,” is not a reprise exactly, but it comes from an atmosphere that is similarly murky—electrical, throbbing tones sweep across the left and right channels as you are pulled further into the ghostly, clanging and clattering sounds that continue wafting until it fades into the ether.
And my intent, of course, with this, was never to compare Giallo, and Tenebrarum, to Slut Intent, and Slutworld. And I suppose that is the difficulty when opting, as I have, to write about two things, and in doing so, looking for the places where they might intersect. Or that I might find myself within an intersection based on my experiences within the albums yes but also adjacent to them. Because there are the things that are similar, yes, and both albums are not in opposition of one another, but are, I think, on opposing ends of something they both firmly exist within, if that makes sense. Because there are the place where there is overlap. The breakneck pacing of the rhythms and how they seemingly never cease writhing and shifting. The impressive precision of the instrumentation and the ferocity with which the vocals are delivered.
An album like Slutworld is not a product of the moment we are in, right now, but it is a reflection and a response to it. It is politically and societally informed, and this is a facet of punk music—using your voice, and the volume of your voice, to make a statement, or speak out about the injustices that we are simply unable to turn away from. Tenebaraum operates in an abstraction—the lyricism, as detailed in the album’s liner notes, is bleak, but not because they are reflections, or responses to the moment we are in right now, but rather, are in incredibly dark fragments and observations, set against a blistering and at times dizzying wall of noise.
And there is this heaviness. A brutality. This very intentionally curated, nightmarish quality across Tenebrarum. But in that, there is also this excitement. The allure and the compulsion from something volatile. There is this thrill that comes from the way it pulls you into the atmosphere it has crafted. An astonishment at just how aggressive and explosive it can be and how quickly it moves and how in that movement it never ceases in shifting and writhing.
An admiration at how it all does really collide together in a way that is both violent yes. But also there is beauty. And an admiration for how there are places where the band, even in the brash, aggressive nature with which it plays, finds places to create structure and even melody, creating something that teeters as it can into an infectiousness.
There is something just mesmerizing that happens. The squalling, harsh clangs of feedback that indicate the beginning of a song and the way there is barely any room to breathe between the ending of one and when another arrives. The ferocious snarling growl with which Jake Van Kempen delivers the fragmented and often harrowing, violent lyrics, howling phrases like, “Mouthful of dirt, I curse your name. Misery knows no bounds. Contempt—the rot of the Earth,” on the frenetic, caterwauling, and stark “Red Dolls Inside A Black Maze,” or later, “Save your prayers—god isn’t here,” he sneers on pounding, crunching “A Blade in The Dark.” “The light fades from your eyes. Haven’t you seen enough?”
And again, I understand. These are lyrics that I am, as someone writing analytically about pop music, unable to provide analysis of. And it is about the feeling. The “vibe.” All the pieces coming together, and in this case, tossed together into something tumultuous, working towards something larger. And even in how horrific it can appear, it does still compel me so.
And the structure of Tenebrarum is fascinating to me. The way it confines itself, and the way it, then, manages to extend beyond and exists for just a little while longer. The album is bookended by the creeping, electro-infused instrumental contributions from Terror Cell Unit, but the final sprawling track, “Black Cat,” then offers us a hypnotic, unnerving, and disorienting experience afterward.
And what makes “Black Cat” so fascinating, and such a memorable way to truly conclude the album, is how it sounds and how it feels, and what occurs in the space that forms between those two senses. There is a noticeable difference in both the production, and how the band plays—there is a looseness, or an improvisational feeling to it, with the repetition of the scuzzy, throbbing bass notes creating a foundation that then folds into the expressive drumming that tumbles in, arriving with much less of a pointed, or sharp edge to it. It’s still incredibly precise, yes. But it has been muffled, or softened, within the way the song has been recorded—because there is this cavernous feeling. You can hear it in the slight reverberation coming off the snare hits, but it is most apparent when it comes off the sounds that Van Kempen makes.
“Burn your mind. Thrill of death. Lust. Release.” Those are the only lyrics in “Black Cat,” and they arrive, with a growl, buried underneath an explosion of feedback and distorted, enormous guitar chords, and the dissonant honks of a saxophone, nearly two minutes in. Because for the first two minutes, Van Kempen coughs. And chokes. Gags. Barks. Again, a looseness to when he does it. Where it falls into the rhythm. The intensity with which he makes these noises. They are, in a word, horrific. There is such a strong discomfort and feeling of dread, or unease in hearing them, and hearing the way they echo out into the atmosphere around him, and the band.
And something that I often give consideration to, in writing about pop music, is the idea, or the balance, of tension and release. And it is hard to find that balance, and then to sustain it. To know when to surrender. And there are times when a song, or much of an album, is more interested in one, over the other. And given the nature of the genre, Tenebrarum is much more concerned with the idea of release, but here, in its final, hypnotic, horrific moments, it walks this give and take flawlessly in terms of a creeping build up, pulling us towards a definitive, and detonative moment.
“Black Cat,” and then the album, then, too, ends with 30 seconds of ear-splitting feedback before it flutters out, and we’re left not in silence. Not completely. The electrical buzz of the amp still hanging in the air, and the last, desperate cathartic gasps still reverberating through the room and haunting it.
Lust.
Release.
* * *
And there is so much to be grateful for. This, I understand. The small, good things we cling to. And there is this cyclical nature. Something that I have become much more aware of in the last few months—or, maybe it is just resonating more. And you will have to forgive me, because I do wish to break the fourth wall. The wall that exists between us. Me, this voice on the page. And you, the reader. I wish to directly address you. Because what I have found, and am just so fascinated with, is the cyclical way something will ultimately inform, or inspire, the next. These are the things that I often give consideration to. How I find reflections of them elsewhere.
And there is so much to be grateful for. This, I understand. We began the practice of a daily exchange of gratitude at the end of last year. My best friend, Alyssa, and I. At her suggestion. When nothing felt good. We remind one another, every day, to ensure we make the time for it.
The practice itself then serves as a reminder. That when nothing feels good and there is frustration and relentlessness and uncertainty and a deep dissatisfaction and an unhappiness. And when there are seemingly never-ending atrocities happening just outside of ourselves that we are not able to turn our gaze from. A reminder because in all of that there are still small, good things. And I am always looking for them. The thin, fraying shred of optimism or hope.
And there is so much to be grateful for. Perhaps you understand this, too. The practice, each day, begins with repetition. Deep breaths. Three, sometimes for. And then Alyssa and I, as best as we are able to say three times, in unison, over the telephone, “There’s so much to be grateful for.”
The small good things in our days.
And I tell you all of that to tell you this—that more than once that I am able to recall and I am confident it will happen again, the allure of and my compulsion towards punk, and hardcore, and their adjacencies found their way into my expressions of daily gratitude. The small good thing. The moment of hope that is offered to us in perhaps ways unexpected. Near the end of last year, I watched a video filmed at the release show for Why Does Paradise Begin in Hell, by the New York City punk band, Haram. In it, they perform on stage with two banners draped behind the drum kit—“Freedom for Palestine,” and “Fuck I.C.E.” And in the fury of the crowd—the bodies of young individuals tossing and failing themselves into one another while Haram plays, an Israeli flag, loosely tied to a stick, is set ablaze. There is so much to be grateful for. I think you understand. I hope you understand. That when nothing feels good, I was grateful for Haram’s display of fearlessness and political outspokenness². Intense. Confrontational. Volatile. But there is a letting go. A surrender. The small, good thing to witness. The assurance. There is the allure and the compulsion and it beckons.
And I acknowledge that not every artist, or band, regardless of the genre, is required to be as intense as Haram. There are other acts, too, that have been outwardly vocal in opposition, which is, again, something to appreciate and admire.
And there is so much to be grateful for, and recently, on the telephone, when Alyssa and I were exchanging gratitude, I told her about a record I had purchased³ the day prior by the Iowa City, Iowa punk band, Bootcamp, expressing my appreciation for the raucous and yes event the uproarious nature of it, but what I was truly grateful for was something specific within the album’s liner notes. In contrast to a list of “Thank Yous,” Bootcamp offers a list of “Fuck Yous.” Specific people are mentioned, by name, as are major cities. But what I was most compelled by, and charmed by, was the last item on the list. “Restaurants without any vegan shit.” There is so much to be grateful for. The small, good things. A reminder that it might not always feel the way that it does now in this moment, and I find an appreciation in instances like this, as trivial or banal as they might appear. A comfort in seeing a brief reflection of my own moral compass and attitude in the art that I continue to immerse myself in further.
And there is so much to be grateful for and on the telephone when I was finished explaining this to Alyssa, she laughs. “It’s just so surprising,” she tells me.” “You are so gentle. And this music is most certainly not.”
And I will ask for your forgiveness again as I continue to address you directly. The wall between us further breaking down. Because I have written about this before. You write what you know and what I know in this moment is that nothing feels good and what I know is a sincerity with which to tell you that. The cyclical nature. The way something goes on to inform the next.
There is this quote from one of Hanif Abdurraqib’s Instagram stories that I think about all of the time. And it is admittedly going to be too complicated for me to explain the context to you, here, at this point, as we have come so far together already, but what he is attempting to describe is the way a specific band can complicate the idea of “The Sad Thing.” And what he says is this—“This world is not tenable for me or my brain or my heart, but I have chosen, despite this, to stay alive. I would like to not subtract myself from the world even though I don’t always know how to best survive in it.”
And I think about the feeling. The one that is hard to articulate. The anxious loneliness I am often overcome with. Something that I am just always on the cusp of understanding for myself and about myself and then being able to explain it to someone else but I am not quite there yet.
But I continue to try.
And I think about the feeling. The one that is hard to articulate. Humbling to admit. The vulnerability and trust required to make the admission. This world is not tenable to my heart or my brain. I continue to try even though it is not lost on me in the slightest that one of the suggested definitions offered of the word “tenebrarum” is “return to the abyss.”
Alyssa laughs on the telephone and tells me that I am so gentle, and that the music is most certainly not. But there is something beautiful in that noise and fury. There is a comfort and an assurance. The small good thing. This feeling I am clutching onto. That things might not always feel the way they do now and they have felt this way for so long. The allure and the compulsion. And this moment. It is fleeting. I understand that. But for just a little while, I am there. And I am trying.
I think about the way that Katy Kelly seethes the final words of “Girls Night,” and how they hang like a specter.
Someday soon, we’ll reach the end.
1 - This is just a quick aside to mention that, strangely, none of the members of Giallo are mentioned by name in the liner notes for Tenebrarum. In writing this piece, I did email the band to ask for the information so I could properly attribute, but I did not receive a response.
2- I feel like it is worth noting that Slut Intent released a limited edition cassette of Slutworld, with the proceeds going to mutual aid and rent relief in Minneapolis; additionally, proceeds from purchasing Gillalo’s self-titled 7” EP are also now going to mutual aid funds .
3- I suppose this might happen with any genre but with punk and hardcore, I have found there is an unending rabbit hole of discovery in terms of learning about new bands. E.G Bootcamp are on the same label as Giallo.
Slutworld is self-released and available directly from the band’s Bandcamp site.
Tenebrarum is available through Convulse Records.
