VOLUME 81 ISSUE 03
Sounds of Portland
08/28/2026
CONTENTS
COVER DESIGN BY NAUE PAGTAKHAN
OPINION Callaway Column: What Media Takes From Autism Dystopian Discographies
P. 4 P. 4-5
ARTS & CULTURE Portland’s Most Budget-Friendly Music Venues Buddy Wynkoop Finds Humor in Modern Exhaustion on “Better than Botox” Local Artist and PSU Alumnus To Play in Spain Vanguard on Vinyl: “Census Designated” by Jane Remover
P. 3 P. 6 P. 7 P. 7
STAFF EDITORIAL EDITOR IN CHIEF Olivia Hendry Young MANAGING EDITOR Grace Peterson NEWS EDITOR Will Lowe ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR Vacant
COPY CHIEF Jude Callaway ONLINE EDITOR Karli Schwartz DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Caleb Dougherty CONTRIBUTORS Drew Dattilo
OPINION EDITOR Daniela Hernandez
PRODUCTION & DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR Haley Hsu
SPORTS EDITOR Hayden Neumann
CONTRIBUTORS Naue Pagtakhan
MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Vacant SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Liam Schmitt
ADVISING & ACCOUNTING COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA Reaz Mahmood SALP ACCOUNTANT Anne Le STUDENT MEDIA TECH ADVISOR Rae Fickle STUDENT MEDIA TECH DEVELOPER Kaylee Hynes WEB DESIGNER Vacant
To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com. MISSION STATEMENT PSU Vanguard’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market. ABOUT Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us online at psuvanguard.com.
Portland’s Most BudgetFriendly Music Venues
Explore alternatives locations to enjoy live music! DREW DATTILO IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT concert tickets can be expensive, and prices are only rising. The entertainment behemoth, Live Nation/Ticketmaster, has garnered controversy and even a lawsuit for its global domination of the live music industry and sky-high ticket prices. Alienating fans for whom these prices are unaffordable, seeing one’s favorite musicians is out of reach for many – especially broke college students. Portland, however, has a plethora of alternative venues that regularly feature cheap concert tickets. This way, even broke college students can discover their new favorite artists and enjoy some live music. MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS: 3939 N MISSISSIPPI AVE. (21+ ONLY) Mississippi Studios is a small, divey music venue that hosts a large variety of musicians and genres, such as alternative, rock, country and hip-hop. The layout is unique, with attendees entering through the establishment Bar Bar, located to the right of the venue. Attendees then cross over to the small stage with a bar and merch area towards the back. There is also a small balcony for attendees who prefer sitting as opposed to the standing floor.
The artists booked at Mississippi Studios are often smaller, indie or niche, which gives concert-goers an opportunity to discover artists that they might not have heard of otherwise. Shows are often cheap with ticket prices ranging from $20 to $30. Mississippi Studios is directly accessible by transit through the 4 bus line. POLARIS HALL: 635 N KILLINGSWORTH COURT Owned and operated by the people at Mississippi Studios, Polaris Hall shares similar features to its sister venue. Primarily booking alternative, rock, folk and country acts, the venue is intimate with mostly standing room and limited seating on the second floor. Unlike its counterpart, however, Polaris Hall regularly features all-ages shows, making it accessible to younger crowds. Also similar to its sister venue, Polaris Hall mainly books indie and niche artists, with ticket prices ranging from $20 to $30. To access via transit, riders can take the 4 or 72 bus lines. THE HIGH LIMIT ROOM: 720 SE HAWTHORNE BLVD. One of the newest venues on this list, The High Limit Room is an all ages, alcohol-free venue specializing in hardcore, punk and metal shows. The venue has a heavy do-it-yourself aesthetic and a grungy atmosphere with a small, second-floor stage lacking any sort of barrier one might find at a larger venue. With a 250-capacity, the venue is compact and mainly features local acts alongside touring bands. Hardcore, punk and metal artists are the most commonly booked, but The High Limit Room also features alternative and hip-hop musicians. Tickets range from $10 to $30 and the venue can be accessed via the 10, 14 and 70 bus lines as well as the A and B street car loops. THE OFFBEAT: 8440 N INTERSTATE AVE. Having opened in the fall of 2025, The Offbeat has a similar do-it-yourself environment as The High Limit Room while accommodating all ages and being alcohol-free. The ground-level room, however, is much larger with a 400-capacity. Owned and operated by the nonprofit Friends of Noise, The Offbeat mainly hosts hardcore bands, but commonly features artists of other genres as well. Tickets range from $10 to $25, though the venue frequently offers sliding scale pricing. Additionally, some shows feature a specific number of tickets that can be claimed for free on a first come, first serve basis. The venue is located next to the Yellow line MAX station in the Kenton neighborhood of North Portland, and can be accessed via the 4 bus line. HOLOCENE: 1001 SE MORRISON ST. (21+ ONLY) Holocene acts as both a nightclub and performance venue, frequently featuring DJ sets as well as touring musicians. The venue is primarily known for the electronic acts that come through and themed music parties, but regularly hosts rock, alternative, emo and hip-hop artists as well. Holocene itself is split in two. The front room features a DJ booth for their themed nights, while the performance room, where touring acts play, is directly behind with a partition wall separating the two rooms. Tickets for concerts range from $15 to $25 and the venue can be accessed via the 15 and 70 bus lines, as well as the A and B street car loops.
PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 28, 2026 • psuvanguard.com
THE HIGH WATER MARK: 6800 NE MLK BLVD. (21+ ONLY) The High Water Mark is a small bar and lounge in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Northeast Portland. It features a small, ground-level stage behind the lounge where touring musicians and local acts regularly perform. Given its compact size, the venue books indie and niche artists from a range of styles, including rock, alternative, punk and metal. Ticket prices range from $10 to $25 for most shows and can be booked in advance or purchased at the venue. To access via transit, riders can use the 6, 8 or 75 bus lines – each of which stops in front of the venue. THE COFFIN CLUB: 421 SE GRAND AVE. (21+ ONLY) The Coffin Club is primarily known as one of Portland’s goth clubs, but the club frequently hosts live musicians alongside their usual roster of DJs. The event space is small and filled with the macabre, ominous imagery one would expect from a goth space. The venue often books niche electronic musicians, specializing in subgenres such as synthwave, darkwave and industrial, as well as artists of other genres that complement the atmosphere. Tickets for their concerts range from $15 to $25. The Coffin Club is accessible via the 6, 12, 19 and 20 bus lines as well as the A and B street car loops. STAR THEATER: 13 NW 6TH AVE. Located across the street from Roseland Theater, Star Theater is much smaller than its neighboring venue, but hosts a large variety of indie bands and artists spanning many genres. Star Theater has both 21+ exclusive and all ages shows, with the standing ground-level floor for the 21+ group and a small balcony for minors. Tickets for many shows range from $15 to $35, but others can be more expensive. Star Theater is highly accessible via transit, with Yellow, Orange and Green line MAX stations nearby. Additionally, the 4, 8, 12, 19 and 20 bus lines all have stops close to the venue.
A&C
3
Dystopian
What Media Takes From Autism
How playing commercial music
JUDE CALLAWAY CASTING CALLS GO OUT FOR A WHITE MAN to play a 20-year-old savant. He should struggle with eye contact, be brilliant and literal — attractive, but unaware of it. The role is autistic, yet the word never appears in the description. Nobody writes the woman diagnosed at 41, the man who has never spoken or the 38-year-old in supported housing. This isn’t merely underrepresentation; it’s an industry’s choice to extract only the most marketable traits from real people. In autistic characters, those traits must photograph well and resolve neatly. Savantism and blunt honesty can be framed as charming or useful, while meltdowns become third-act crises, resolved by the credits. Extraction implies a buyer, and the traits that sell are the ones an audience can be trusted to manage. The refined product is engineered by writers to evoke pity, admiration or desire. These are planned long before the audience arrives. “The Good Doctor” is the textbook case of the first response. Dr. Shaun Murphy’s savantism photographs well and resolves on schedule, but the writing purchases that legibility by rendering him a perpetual child — he’s talked down to, and his autonomy is staged as an ongoing debate among his colleagues. His intellect is the asset; his adulthood is the negotiation, and it can never conclude, because a network drama needs it as a plot device again next week. He is given a marriage and a child, and is never written out of needing supervision. The feeling the writing produces is pity. It isn’t what the audience adds. It’s what they’re handed. The other two responses are engineered the same way, and they’re where this series goes next. Part 3 covers romanticization — autism as a gift, as a superpower, as unfiltered honesty — and who benefits from the framing. Part 4 covers fetishization: the traits worn as accessories and the person left out.
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OPINION
DANIELA HERNANDEZ MODERN-DAY ESTABLISHMENTS LIKE COFFEE SHOPS, restaurants, beauty salons, thrift stores and other popular places pride themselves on authenticity and individuality. A “no place like us” attitude that simply isn’t true. All these businesses choose to play the same “top hits” as background music, which is a catalyst for their poor quality of individuality. No matter how a business may distinguish itself with its multi-thousand-dollar remodel or its gluten-free products, it is all thrown away when “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus plays over the speakers. Forget about going somewhere else — the same playlist is playing in the establishment a couple of blocks away. These playlists include the overplayed singles of America's top artists. Hit songs from the last two months are played to draw younger folks and give the impression that the business is culturally relevant. New-age country songs are incorporated for those who don’t identify with mainstream pop. Viral hits made by music industry veterans reinforce a sense of familiarity and nostalgia. Together, the songs create a soundtrack that provides a safe, comfortable and clean atmosphere for customers. However, it's important to acknowledge the extremely hard work that goes into minimalist interior design. The wooden and marble fixtures are carefully chosen to be subtle. Concrete walls create the illusion that the place is a lot bigger than it is. A vibrant green plant is placed in a corner as a sign of life and vegetation. The marketing for this establishment will promote a high-end quality product with a top-tier atmosphere and an experience that comes with free wifi. It's all a lie. There is nothing high-end or original about the experience, down to the fake plant. It's a false sense of authenticity because playing the same Spotify “Chill Hits” is producing a copy-and-paste business atmosphere. Making the decision to play the same music in an establishment that has saturated our radios, social media and streaming services reduces the potential quality of a business to a dystopian experience. It's a horror that is felt not only as a customer, but as an employee. As someone who has worked retail for the past four years, I have been subject to these types of playlists regularly. It's haunting. What sounds like a harmless playlist for background music becomes an exhausting cycle of earworms. Eventually, the sound becomes a sensory overload during already stressful shifts.
My fellow employees can also feel the overstimulation from the music while ringing up a line of customers. As an employee, I can say that my performance progressively worsens. By the end of the shift, I am ready to collapse. Forcing employees to work every day to the same aggravating soundtracks worsens the business's customer service performance. The willingness to uphold an upbeat, bubbly mood for eight to 10 hours a day steadily declines with every hour. When working in an already overstimulating environment, the quality of customer service is compromised. Employees become more mentally and emotionally fatigued. Morale and patience also rapidly decline. This contributes to a less positive experience for the employee and the customer. Apart from being an employee, I am also a consumer. When I clock out, I leave my workplace with excitement for freedom from the corporate-curated music, humming LED lights, and customer service scripts. But the music follows me into big-box retailers, franchises, start-ups, and momand-pop shops. It's the same soundtrack of death that seems to be inescapable. Generic music also adds a lack of culture to the business. The songs that are played are mostly American-dominated and exclude non-Western languages and genres. There is a loss of rich history when establishments opt out of playing music that is connected to the roots of the business. Language, lyrics, rhythm and history are tools used to understand a story. Music is a powerful medium to interpret identity. Commercial music is supposed to appeal to everyone, which means it belongs to no one. It is placeless and nameless. Choosing to play Spotify’s “Top 40” is a rejection of a culture that causes a business to lack identity. As a customer, originality and uniqueness are attractive qualities craved in a world of replicas. Product uniqueness is just one part of a good experience; environment quality is the other.
PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 28, 2026 • psuvanguard.com
n Discographies
c reduces a business's quality
A few of Portland's businesses have hopped on the train of creating and playing playlists that align with the store's atmosphere. Specifically, ethnic grocery stores deliver a variety of songs tied to their culture. Super Mercados México is a hub for those searching for authentic Mexican groceries. Stepping into the building, sounds of Banda, Mariachi and Norteño music fill the room. Saigon Market is an Asian grocery store that plays Thai and Vietnamese music. These establishments provide a refreshing experience as customers escape the clutches of America's chart-toppers. It is also nice to see employees hum along while working. Listening to sounds that identify with you as an employee makes the work environment much more immersive and fulfilling. The journey in and out of the store is much more enjoyable for both sides of the aisle. Employees are the people who best understand business culture. Sales associates, sales leads, baristas, frontline staff and those we call in customer service know what matters to consumers. They interact with clients the most and understand their stories, frustrations and values. Employees also drive the culture of the business. The dynamics of employees during an opening shift, a midday rush and the final closing hour create hard-working teams that can eventually develop into friendships. Each team is unique, which adds to the uniqueness of a business. These teams deserve the right to choose the music played in their establishment. Business is a form of storytelling. Don’t tell your customers that you got lazy and put the first playlist on Spotify you could find. Also, don't tell your clients you are ashamed of who you really are. Stepping away from repetitive dystopian commercial music is an act of rebellion and choosing to claim your own identity as a business. Now that's authenticity.
PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 28, 2026 • psuvanguard.com
OPINION
5
NAUE PAGTAKHAN
Buddy Wynkoop Finds Humor in Modern Exhaustion on “Better Than Botox” KPSU DJ showcases local band’s angsty, theatrical sound
ADAM MURPHY, KPSU DJ “DJAYAJAY” Editor’s note: Portland State University’s college radio station, KPSU, gives the Portland community the opportunity to listen to music and talk shows curated by student DJs. For our Music issue, one of these DJs, DjayAjay, gives readers a deep dive into local band Buddy Wynkoop’s album “Better than Botox,” whom he features on his radio show. KPSU is available to listen to at kpsu.org. AS A DJ AT KPSU, I regularly look for music that gives listeners something unexpected. When I first saw the song title “Cleanest Dirty Shirt” on Buddy Wynkoop’s album “Better Than Botox,” however, my first thought was not art punk or Portland’s local music scene. It was Johnny Cash. The title reminded me of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” the Kris Kristofferson song made famous by Cash. In that song, the narrator wakes up worn down, searches through his clothes and puts on his cleanest dirty shirt. The image suggests a person who is still functioning, but only barely. Buddy Wynkoop uses a similar image, but places it in a louder, stranger and more anxious musical setting. Released in March 2025, “Better Than Botox” is the Portland band’s 10-song debut album. Buddy Wynkoop combines angular guitar parts, synthesizers and spoken passages, using vocals that move between singing, shouting and acting. The songs rarely settle into one mood for very long. Guitars strike in short bursts, rhythms change direction, and repeated phrases begin to sound like thoughts that will not stop circling. “Cleanest Dirty Shirt” is one of the clearest examples of the album’s main concern: trying to function when ordinary life feels heavier than it should. The narrator wakes up with plans but is surrounded by dust, dirty cloth-
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SPORTS
ing and unfinished responsibilities. A ringing phone becomes another demand for attention. The song is not simply about being unorganized. It is about the pressure to keep producing, responding and pleasing other people even when the narrator, and people at large, feel mentally exhausted. That is where the comparison to Johnny Cash becomes useful. “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” presents exhaustion as quiet resignation. Cash’s deep voice and the slower country arrangement allow the listener to sit with the narrator’s loneliness. Buddy Wynkoop presents exhaustion as agitation. The dirty shirt still represents a life slipping out of order, but the music is tense and unpredictable. Instead of walking alone through a quiet Sunday morning, this narrator seems trapped in a room with laundry, a telephone and their own racing thoughts. The strongest musical comparison is the band Devo. Buddy Wynkoop shares the earlier band’s stiff rhythms, jagged guitar accents, nervous repetition and ability to use humor without completely hiding the frustration beneath it. At certain moments, “Better Than Botox” sounds like Devo performing in a crowded Portland basement where the equipment might fall apart before the song ends. The song “Racing” turns deadlines and procrastination into a frantic loop. The lyrics repeat demands involving love, taking it away and giving it back until the words sound less like a traditional chorus and more like a machine that has stopped working correctly. The repetition supports the album’s subject because many of its characters seem unable to escape routines that are wearing them down. “9-5 Disease” focuses on work, wages and the feeling of returning to the same struggle every week. Its title treats the normal work
schedule as an illness rather than a sign of stability. “The Certain Is Unfuture” repeats its central ideas until the words become both a joke and a warning. These songs do not offer clear solutions. Instead, they recreate the pressure they are describing. The album also reminded me of Peter Gabriel, especially in its use of theatrical vocals. Buddy Wynkoop does not sound exactly like Gabriel; the Portland band is rougher, more aggressive and less polished. The comparison comes from the way the vocals sometimes perform a character rather than simply deliver lyrics. Gabriel became known for combining music with theatrical performance, especially during his years with Genesis. Buddy Wynkoop uses a similar idea on a smaller and more chaotic scale. Across the album, the singer may sound like an anxious employee, an overwhelmed procrastinator, a frustrated artist or an unwanted guest who refuses to leave. That theatrical quality is especially noticeable on “If You Give a Poet a Beer.” The track becomes a comic spoken-word story about a poet entering someone’s home, smoking, leaving dirty dishes and rearranging the record collection. The situation becomes increasingly ridiculous as the song continues. Its structure resembles a children’s story rewritten for tired adults. The song is funny, but it also provides a break from the album’s heavier arrangements. Humor is not included simply to make the record more entertaining. It is one of the band’s main ways of responding to discomfort. Rather than presenting anxiety, work and exhaustion with complete seriousness, Buddy Wynkoop exaggerates them until the listener can recognize how absurd everyday pressure can become.
“Stress Fracture” uses a more direct image. Emotional pressure becomes a physical crack, as though the body is eventually forced to pay for everything happening in the mind. The arrangement increases the feeling of strain rather than calming it. This is one of the album’s strongest qualities: the music does not merely accompany the lyrics. It behaves like the emotion being described. That intensity can also become the record’s main weakness. The shouted vocals, repeated phrases and abrupt changes can be tiring when several songs are heard in one sitting. Listeners who prefer smooth melodies or familiar song structures may find the album deliberately difficult. Some ideas are repeated beyond the point where their meaning is already clear. Still, much of that excess appears intentional. “Better Than Botox” is an album about people who feel overstimulated, overworked and unable to silence their thoughts. A calm and perfectly controlled record would not match those subjects. Buddy Wynkoop builds its identity from nervous energy, theatrical delivery and the collision between humor and frustration. “Cleanest Dirty Shirt” remains the song I returned to most. Its title led me toward Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, but Buddy Wynkoop takes the image in another direction. The song moves from country loneliness into Portland art-punk anxiety, with Devo’s mechanical tension and some of Peter Gabriel’s dramatic performance style. Buddy Wynkoop does not sound like a copy of any of those artists. Instead, the band uses familiar musical echoes to create its own picture of modern exhaustion: funny, uncomfortable and just organized enough to make it through another day.
PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 28, 2026 • psuvanguard.com
Local Artist and PSU Alumnus To Play In Spain
Don Brown to play with in a Spanish band following his retirement COURTESY OF DON BROWN
Don Brown playing outdoors in Palm Springs with the Desert Winds Freedom Band.
GRACE PETERSON DON BROWN HAS SPENT THE last couple of months busking at the Portland Farmer’s Market at Portland State University. He usually stands between Smith Memorial Student Union and Fariborz Maseeh Hall with a trombone and a speaker for his hour-long set, playing anything from jazz hits to Disney musicals to Sting’s “Fields of Gold.” “I practice two or three times during the week, and then I come here and I play for one hour. My chops will handle one hour,” Brown said. “When I practice in my apartment, I have to use something called a whisper mute. It blocks it from making sound, and so it's like push-ups for my lungs. It's so hard, but I can't play loud in the apartment.” Brown has been playing for over 50 years, having started at twelve-years-old. His family wasn’t very musically inclined, but he was drawn to his school’s band. Music clicked for him, and it set up his career. He eventually got his Bachelors in Music Education, a Masters in Elementary Education, and a Doctorate in Education Leadership. He got his master’s and school principal credentials at PSU, before moving to Eugene to be an educator. While his focus has always been education, he’s never not had music. He’s played in the One More Time Band, the Desert Winds Freedom Band and the Eugene Symphonic Band, among others. For Brown, music is more than just noise or movement. He says it’s something completely “mystical” and “mysterious,” something that’s impossible to fully understand. “I'm gonna get a little woo woo,” Brown said. “The whole universe is based on vibration, whether it's the vibration of a photon as light streams toward Earth from the sun, or a vibration of a sound wave, or the beating of a heart. It's all coming down to this one phenomenon called vibration, and whether you sing or whether you play an instrument or if you're in an ensemble, you're in this intense vibratory environment with music.” Brown said this feeling is something he’s spent much of his life learning and thinking about, and claimed that you don’t need to be musically inclined to experience the entire depth of music. “Sing in the shower, sing in the car, sing along with something or pick up a clarinet and start learning clarinet,” Brown said. “When you get to a certain place, you will connect with this greater vibration.” For most of his life, he focused on education. In retirement, Brown picked up busking as a fun hobby that keeps him practicing. He has been busking for two years now, and used to busk at the Eugene Farmer’s Market before coming back to Portland in 2026.
PSU Vanguard • AUGUST 28, 2026 • psuvanguard.com
Once an educator, always an educator — Brown has a particular fondness for market-goers who bring their kids. “The people who respond the most are the ones with young children, and I really love that because that tells me that they want music to be part of their child's lives,” Brown said. “Even if they don't offer a tip or anything like that, they'll stand and listen, and the kids will watch the slide. And sometimes I'll point the slide a little at them if they're older, so they can see how it works.” Brown and his wife are travelers and used to live in Valencia, Spain. After retirement, they decided to move there permanently, so they put their house up for sale and made arrangements to immigrate to Spain. They originally planned to move straight from Eugene to Spain, but their timing was off, so they’re detouring in Portland. “When we listed our [Eugene] house, it accidentally sold really fast, like two days. So, like, okay, let's go to Portland for a while,” Brown said. “It took a while to close and sell all of our possessions except our clothing…we're living with our patio furniture in our apartment.” While the brief detour in Portland was unexpected, Brown says he and his wife have both been enjoying it. “Portland has a lot to offer,” Brown said. “Oh my God, our budget for restaurants has tripled since we left Eugene. But our rent’s lower, so it’s all good…we’re eating our rent, basically.” When he last lived in Spain, Brown played for Sociedad Musical Unión de Pescadores (SMUP). The band’s origins date back to the 1880s, and is named after the local fishing industry's self-sufficiency in the 20th century. In his previous travels, Brown was able to play his trombone with SMUP at a range of events, including playing the national anthem at a religious ceremony. “It was challenging because I was still learning to [play the music], but I got a glimpse of Spanish culture that would not be available if I had not been in SMUP,” said Brown. “And our friends there still say, when you come back, we're going to welcome you like family.” While Brown loves Portland, he is excited to move to Spain, where he says there is less traffic and less noise. He’s a completely different person when he lives there, going by Diego Brown, walking everywhere and fully immersing himself in the culture. Some things will stay the same for him — he will research and find new places to busk. Brown will continue to busk at the Portland Farmer’s Market until September. Brown can be found on Facebook and SMUP can be found on Instagram and YouTube.
ILDIKO CABRERA The unique landscape of August: bone-dry grass, pale blue skies, a certain dread carried by the warm breeze. Jane Remover’s “Census Designated” harnesses this distinct seasonal angst. The album cover shows them shirtless, looking at something just beyond the horizon, frozen in anticipation. On their sophomore project, the artist perfectly channels latesummer malaise through an exhilarating blend of dark dream-rock and brooding electronics. Like waking up slowly in the morning heat, an aching guitar draws us into a world of longing and self-confrontation. “I peel my eyes open, everyone knows and nobody cares.” Jane Remover’s vocals cut through the sonic fuzz on opener “Cage Girl/ Cam Girl.” Their struggle for recognition follows them throughout the album, like an invisible chain. They plead, rage, and scream confessions that feel stolen from diary entries, hoping to break free. Jane Remover doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of unrequited devotion. “I forced myself to fit in your pocket,” they cry in “Always Have Always Will” before drowning in a wall of sound. Nor do they hold back their biting contempt on the album’s title track, where they sing, “I bet she’s so lucky to have a voice like that.” Their honesty is as beautiful as it is brutal. The sonic sparseness of closers “Video” and “Contingency Song," shows Jane Remover at their most vulnerable. “I’m afraid I only changed myself because you’re not into the original/Please don’t hurt me,” they whisper over gentle ambient tones. The calm is deceptive, and they know the exact moment to devolve into a wailing noise and break your heart violently. Ride the waves of distorted guitar, feel the drums pound in tandem with your heart. “Census Designated” is no summer picnic; it demands shattering your earbuds on a sweaty morning run and blowing out your car speakers at 2 a.m. Once it’s over, even the silence will feel explosive.
SPORTS
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