Over a decade after releasing their self-titled third LP, space-rock revival duo Secret Machines returned to making music after a tumultuous period struggling to gain footing with a record label. Yet the songs on their follow-up to that 2020 LP and a pair of EPs earlier this year—The Moth, the Lizard, and the Secret Machines, which is slated for a February 17 release—are the finalized versions of the recordings Brandon Curtis and Josh Garza (joined on the new album by guitarist Phil Karnats) had been tinkering with before their hiatus. “Thematically, we were feeling lost and confused,” Garza recalls, “and just speaking for me, I was in a fragile state, emotionally. I think this record reflects that, quite honestly.”
Yet rather than feeling scattered, the ideas that make up the new album have a more purposefully deconstructed feel, with the clanking second single “You Want It Worse” seamlessly combining totally unique layers of sound under Curtis’ staccato vocal delivery. “‘The fire-alarm guitars, the shit-faced Vince Guaraldi piano, and the stamping-plant drums fell into place with a naturalness that ultimately magnetized the vocal part into this unstable alloy that sort of melts in between the cracks and craters of the rest of the production,” Curtis shares of the single, which provided a blueprint for the rest of the album’s track list. “Listening to it today brings up feelings of longing and otherness. Reminds me of the futility of wishing things could be different than they are.”
Hear the track below, and pre-order the album here.
