Stuck - Freak Frequency (2023) Hi-Res

Post-punk quickly became a genre that suffered from over saturation in the UK. Every band under the genre trying to beat out the next only encouraged new bands to spawn and have all of the same influences, each a product of the same IDLES loving, FONTAINES D.C. praising, SPORTS TEAM suckling machine to create awful music – a sham of thin noise that covers the genre in a nice little safety blanket that has a THE FALL album cover on the front of it. Fortunately enough, some bands are informed enough to embrace the collapse of this false shop front and rebuild with some forcefulness.

For starters hailing from outside of the UK, STUCK built their previous album Change Is Bad on a weird fervour mixed in with desolate sounds to make a cocktail of melancholic static noise. Now they’re ready to release their second album Freak Frequency where that same signature fervour persists but within a new concept for the Chicago four-piece. Opening track The Punisher is full of wiry riffs just begging to go faster like a dog wanting to come off its lead; still it’s just a taste of how far STUCK can take their silly drones, as Time Out takes that and cranks it up to max. Frontman Greg Obis spits out yelps in a plea for a break from social media with overwhelming guitars, sax and drums smashing into each other as they mimic the unforgiving socials and their viciousness.

Similar to the London-based BEIGE BANQUET, the band experiment with cagey riffs and steady basslines in Freak Frequency to create dark and sketchy soundscapes, pressing forward with unease as Obis describes the rise and fall of a naïve society. Grabbing at images of failing marriages, poor wages, economical decline with no answers as to why puts into perspective the very real situations that are lived in. Fools Idol finds warped misplaced hope instilled in a figure, like 1984’s Big Brother, dissecting lies amongst wisely chosen slinky strings to be plucked that emphasise the wide distrust before erupting into malfunctioning sounding riffs. Between these two tracks the inspiration and themes for the album begin to shine through; bleakness and distortion, the mundanity of our collective existentialism.

That bleakness briefly disappears during the free flowing Make It Up as STUCK reclaim some bounciness for just a fleeting moment. They’re quick to reacquaint themselves with the gloom of Freak Frequency though, Plank III is a noir setting full of fog which disguises the bitterness and poignancy within the track. The album closes with a double dose of rapid existentialism; as STUCK teem with the love of living life Freak Frequency becomes a complete picture. The four-piece have dared to go faster, bringing wonderful noise to the table, scaffolded by frustration and wanting to expand away from repetitive post-punk tropes.