Record of the Week: Mirage: S/T 12"

Mirage: S/T 12” (Roachleg Records) After a couple of noteworthy EPs, New York’s Mirage deliver their first proper LP for Roachleg Records. Like Sorry State’s Psico Galera, on this album Mirage seems to take a lot of influence from the later work by pioneers of the “furious years” of Italian hardcore. While bands like Wretched, Indigesti, and Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers started out creating some of the wildest, most primitive-sounding music I’ve ever heard, all three bands gradually moved toward sounds that were far more musically accomplished and characterized by a uniquely unsettling atmosphere. Mirage seems to be in the same boat as those bands as they matured, committed to punk’s fundamental intensity and heaviness, but augmented with an ambition to spread their wings and make sounds that are more creative, intricate, and varied. And Mirage shows a huge amount of range here. While most songs feature fast, knotty rhythms you’ll love if you dug the latest Psico Galera record, a track like “Morso Infettivo” proves they can still put the pedal to the metal and summon that sense of wildness that made so many of us fall in love with 80s Italian hardcore. And there are a few moments that are downright surprising, like the instrumental interlude “Mirage I.” “Mirage I” is the first song on the b-side, and when I drop the needle on that side, my head always snaps back for a second as I wonder to myself, “did someone press an Eddy Current Suppression Ring record on the b-side of this by mistake?” But nope, that’s just Mirage leaning into a heavy, almost krautrock-y rhythm and letting a refreshing draft of melody into their world. It’s all wrapped in a recording that’s heavy, bright, and textured in all the right ways and a beautiful, insert-heavy package featuring a ton artwork from guitarist Matt Morgantini. A must-listen for anyone who values both originality and intensity their hardcore punk.