Chicago group’s debut lp. 10 songs of drum machine
Glam with a hearty reverence for the ramones. Screen printed
jackets and a double sided insert drawn by Beau Richie (Nuke Cult).

Our take: Debut LP from this Chicago duo, and I think it’s pretty much a shoe-in for my “Best of 2017” list. It’s no secret that we here at Sorry State are enthusiastic devotees of Joe Sussman’s work—he’s also a key player in Nancy as well as Dangus Tarkus—and Dreams of the Gentlest Texture is the best thing he’s done so far. I’ve wasted a lot of time thinking (and having idle conversations, mostly with Seth and Jeff) about what makes a Muff Divers song different from a Nancy song or a Dangus Tarkus song, but I’m not sure there’s an answer to that riddle. The more important thing to note here is that—as good as all of those projects’ releases have been for some time now—each new one seems to be better than the last, and this is the best one yet. The absolutely scorching riff that starts off the album would fit perfectly on a Powerpearls comp if you slowed the record down to 33RPM; at 45RPM, though, listening to it evokes a feeling similar to eating an entire Easter basket full of candy all in one morning… in a good way! Somehow, Muff Divers manage to sustain that sugar-rush feeling across eleven tracks, not by crafting a well-rounded set of songs, but rather by the sheer brute force with which they shove great riffs and great melodies down your through one after the other. They never deviate from an It’s Alive-esque manic tempo, restricting any use of finesse to shredding guitar licks (that are somehow still insanely melodic) and densely-packed arrangements that constantly play guitar, vocals, bass, and synth off of one another in ways that you hardly notice are clever because they zip by so fast. If you’ve already worn out the great Midnite Snaxxx album from earlier this year, this is the only thing I’ve heard that’s worthy of replacing its spot in your rotation.