Screensaver: Expressions Of Interest

- On their debut LP, Expressions of Interest, Naarm/Melbourne-based band Screensaver create a unique state of anxiety which is all-pervasive and...necessitates dancing.

In 2016, two years after meeting in Berlin while touring with their respective bands Bad Vision and Spray Paint, Krystal Maynard (from Naarm/Melbourne, Victoria) and Christopher Stephenson (Austin, Texas) started exchanging ideas over the internet. Screensaver didn’t have a name then, but a genesis it was. By 2019, Stephenson was living in Melbourne, Giles Fielke (ex Low Tide) and James Beck (Personal Touch / ex Rat Columns) had joined the band, and they had released four track EP Demos.

Sonically, Screensaver are an amalgamation of goth, synth, and post punk. On a macro level The Cure, Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees, are some of vocalist Krystal Maynard’s musical influences as a teenager. However, on a micro level you'll find Constant Mongrel and Nun, UK label mates Es, and almost anything and everything released on Nihlistic Orbs. At the same time, this band is like no other. Thematically, Screensaver are brooding and gloomy, with discordant guitar riffs built around Maynard’s social commentary and themes such as fear and isolation.

Body Parts, the first track on Expressions of Interest, is an assault of nervous energy, repetitive bass lines and monotone vocals delivered in a drawl. The effect is hypnotic and haunting, a ritual chant (think Lakes), which is eventually lifted by lush guitar and warm, fuzzy synth. The next few tracks follow the same path, with the synergy between monorhythmic bass and krautrock drumming juxtaposed against jarring guitar forcing a visceral response. MEDS has a pummelling, tribal drumbeat, ominous synths, and a frantic feel. Sweet guitar hooks will bring about restless leg syndrome and force you to throw your head about in a fit. The second half of the album shifts gears and sees Screensaver expanding their sound. Attention Economy is a slower affair drenched in synth, with little change in tempo except for keys. The drums are a steady heartbeat, ticking below foreboding basslines and ringing vocals. The final track, Soft Landing, is exactly that: after nine tracks of relentless energy, the pace settles right down, and we finish on notes of quiet rumination.

My first thought when listening to this album was that it sounds like some sort of dystopian dream. But that isn’t really the case. Written throughout late 2019 into 2020 and recorded between 2020 and 2021, Expressions of Interest was constructed during the new normal—when themes typically found in science fiction novels have become our reality. Resultant periods of isolation and disquiet have given the tracks more of an electronic influence than otherwise may have been present, as well as enhancing the general feelings of unrest. Like so many iconic post-punk albums that are born out of their cultural climate, there is no hiding the unease that runs through this collection. Still, the fact that Screensaver has turned a period of shared anxiety into something refreshing, melodic, and madly danceable is a gift to us all.

- Tristan Birrell.<a href="https://screensaver.bandcamp.com/album/expressions-of-interest">Express… Of Interest by screensaver</a></iframe>