Kal Marks
Wasteland Baby
EXPLODING IN SOUND
Kal Marks don’t need to recite passages from their near-namesake’s books to convey the truth of his predictions. Throughout the course of the Brooklyn-via-Boston band’s new album, Wasteland Baby, the terrifying reality of what the world has become as a result of capitalism is markedly clear. That said, this is an album that points that reality out through an incredibly personal lens: that of frontman Carl Shane’s fears of becoming a parent (with bandmate and life partner-in-crime Christina Puerto) in a society ravaged by neoliberalism and neofascism. Especially, it should be pointed out, in the US, where the illusion of choice created by the two-party system is ushering in the end of the American Empire at a painfully slow pace.
Of course, out of turbulence so often comes inspiration, and Shane’s anxiety about bringing new life into this American dystopia has inspired a particularly dystopian collection of songs. It begins slowly, gently, and almost sweetly with “Wasteland Baby (Intro),” the precursor to the album-ending title track. But its old-timey melody is punctuated by erratic bursts of nightmarish static—premonitions of both the music that follows and the horrors to be found within them. The first proper track, “Insects,” is a rush of apocalyptic noise rock—Shane coming off almost as a wayward soothsayer somewhere between Nick Cave and Tom Waits, only more urgent.
That’s true, too, on “Hard Work Will Get You Nowhere (Motorin),” wherein his growl takes on an almost inhuman quality as he spits and snarls “Hard work got you nowhere, pray for life,” the words distorting as they squeeze through the speakers. And again on the post-punk strains of “You Are Found” and “Whatever the News”—both of which reconcile the sad fact that under the current system, none of us are free. Yet there’s a desperation to break free of those chains manifested in the disturbing turbulence of the latter, the intensely fraught “Midnight,” and the epic crescendo of the title track.
As much as Springsteen’s critique of America in “Born in the USA” has been misunderstood, the charging, revolutionary anthem of “Wasteland Baby” sounds like it’s trying to lay down The Boss’ actual intention with that song, while also ramming home the point that, together, Shane and Puerto can hopefully succeed in doing what seems so impossible and raise their wasteland baby in this hellscape. Beyond that, there lies deep in these songs a hope that the revolution will come soon and the whole damn system can and will be overthrown in the way it needs to be. Because voting for the lesser of two evils for the last however many decades is precisely what’s led us (and this record) into the situation—the wasteland, baby—that we’re in now.
