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If Es’ debut album for Upset the Rhythm explored the “tension between intent and interpretation”, the London group’s 2023 EP, ‘Fantasy’, constructs a coda for resistance against the distorted gaze. A four-track contact-high anxiety amid fact and facsimile, the new release attempts to define a sound that still resonates in an increasingly confused public theatre, where cerebral dreams manifest in corrupt fascination.
Echoing the legendary Pylon or the later, disco-inspired releases from PIL, tracks like ‘Emergency’ and ‘Unreal’ blend the band’s established disjunctive style of gothic restlessness with brighter, poppy, and danceable tones. These stylistically unwind in transition with the increasingly claustrophobic pieces like ‘Too Late’ and ‘Swallowed Whole’, syncopating a parallel design of the frantic and the fashionable.
Paired with a lyrical intricacy which emits a desire to break the fetish of false representation, ‘Fantasy’ reminds us that worthy punk records, like any manifesto of neurotic suspicion, balance testimonial, speculative-fiction, and social critique. Indebted to the past but pointed sharply to the future, Es deconstruct our modern wreckage of personhood and self-deceit, granting a sense of solidarity inside alienation. Inside ‘Fantasy’ we visualize our own estrangement, and it is only when this mirror fades that we find the tools to fight back.
Our take: Fantasy is the latest 4-track EP from London’s Es, following up their Less of Everything LP from 2020 and their 2016 debut on La Vida Es Un Mus. If you haven’t heard Es before, they take the punk 4-piece format and swap out the guitar for a synth, a difference they emphasize with the approach each member takes to their instrument. The rhythm section is big and heavy, with a colossal bass sound and lithe, propulsive drumming. It makes sense that Es’s debut was on La Vida Es Un Mus because, while they aren’t a hardcore band, their volume and power means they wouldn’t be out of place on a hardcore bill. By contrast, the synths are more delicate and ethereal; while synth-punk bands like the Spits approach the instrument the way Johnny Ramone attacked his guitar, Es’s synths are more spare, ethereal, and harmonically sophisticated, tugging against the rhythm section rather than locking in with it. The vocals also take this more winding approach, the lyrics dense with abstractions that seem to come in and out of focus in a way that feels dense with possible meanings. It all adds up to a sound that’s powerful yet brimming with tension, a bit like Gang of Four at their most agitated but with their confrontational Marxist polemics replaced by something more organic and feminine. As with everything Es has released, it’s a distinctive, enriching, and satisfying listen, and beautifully packaged for those of us who wish to indulge in the physical version.
Echoing the legendary Pylon or the later, disco-inspired releases from PIL, tracks like ‘Emergency’ and ‘Unreal’ blend the band’s established disjunctive style of gothic restlessness with brighter, poppy, and danceable tones. These stylistically unwind in transition with the increasingly claustrophobic pieces like ‘Too Late’ and ‘Swallowed Whole’, syncopating a parallel design of the frantic and the fashionable.
Paired with a lyrical intricacy which emits a desire to break the fetish of false representation, ‘Fantasy’ reminds us that worthy punk records, like any manifesto of neurotic suspicion, balance testimonial, speculative-fiction, and social critique. Indebted to the past but pointed sharply to the future, Es deconstruct our modern wreckage of personhood and self-deceit, granting a sense of solidarity inside alienation. Inside ‘Fantasy’ we visualize our own estrangement, and it is only when this mirror fades that we find the tools to fight back.
Our take: Fantasy is the latest 4-track EP from London’s Es, following up their Less of Everything LP from 2020 and their 2016 debut on La Vida Es Un Mus. If you haven’t heard Es before, they take the punk 4-piece format and swap out the guitar for a synth, a difference they emphasize with the approach each member takes to their instrument. The rhythm section is big and heavy, with a colossal bass sound and lithe, propulsive drumming. It makes sense that Es’s debut was on La Vida Es Un Mus because, while they aren’t a hardcore band, their volume and power means they wouldn’t be out of place on a hardcore bill. By contrast, the synths are more delicate and ethereal; while synth-punk bands like the Spits approach the instrument the way Johnny Ramone attacked his guitar, Es’s synths are more spare, ethereal, and harmonically sophisticated, tugging against the rhythm section rather than locking in with it. The vocals also take this more winding approach, the lyrics dense with abstractions that seem to come in and out of focus in a way that feels dense with possible meanings. It all adds up to a sound that’s powerful yet brimming with tension, a bit like Gang of Four at their most agitated but with their confrontational Marxist polemics replaced by something more organic and feminine. As with everything Es has released, it’s a distinctive, enriching, and satisfying listen, and beautifully packaged for those of us who wish to indulge in the physical version.