Paradox Intact is the band's first release since 2020 I believe. This is when their remarkable The Perfect Candidate LP came out. So if I'm counting correctly, this would make it Miscalculations sixth long player since their debut dropped back in 2013. I mention this not because the band is starting to sound trite or dull after so many releases, quite the opposite in fact. Shaun Clark and Marco Palumbo Rodrigues jump back into the melee head first with fists tightened and teeth clenched.
On this much anticipated new record, the band's resolve appears herculean, vision seems clearer, and direction is locked in and focused. Like urban nocturnal hunters honing in on their prey in the darkest of moonless nights. The band continues to take us down a rainy, dimly lit, neo-futuristic world with songs that evoke only the most ruinous of human emotions. Most of the time the tracks on this record have the bass guitar guiding the way through the murky waters like Charon through the river Styx. Meanwhile, the guitars fade in and out, swirling all around the unlighted, driving rhythms like restless apparitions. The vocals howl and wail desperately like a regretful soul, trapped in a spiritual prison of their own making. These hymns of psychosis featured here range from fast, hard driving blasters to mid tempo numbers that remind me a bit of early Killing Joke or Rozz Williams era Christian Death with a dystopian twist. Miscalculations aren't a goth or death rock band though. They do however stay on the shadowy side of punk, post punk and new wave, mixing a new sinister elixir of their own.
Make no mistake, Miscalculations are not here to hold your hand through a break up, or to try to make sense of your small, petty world for you. They simply hold a mirror to the dark and desperate lands in which we now dwell in or will soon come to pass. And that right there may be the most unnerving approach to an art form there is. Album is available now digitally with vinyl careening our way soon from No Front Teeth records.
