The voice I heard on this somewhat anonymous EP felt familiar. It turns out it’s Nadia Garofalo, formerly of Ganser, which makes all the sense in the world because their last album, Just Look at That Sky, was one of the best rock releases of the last few years. This collaboration between Garofalo and Ben Shillabeer crosses the Atlantic (Garofalo lives in Chicago while Shillabeer lives in the UK) and is in a similar mold of post-punk sounds combined with lyrics that are so sharp that they practically draw blood.
Punk is in a tough spot lately because it is hard to really come off as provocative. Bashing Republicans is thuddingly obvious, and the left has so much tone-policing that a lot of artists shriek their lyrics but ultimately still come off as docile rule-followers. Heavy Feelings has the right idea, as the lyrics turn inward and often reveal uncomfortable truths about ourselves, and the spiky sound is chaotic without becoming completely formless.
The opener, “Noctalgia,” is the catchiest of the four songs, with a crunchy guitar riff and lyrics that go back to the Ganser theme of looking at the sky. It touches on a recurring theme across the EP, which is how our brains have melted due to a combination of internal and external factors. “Bootlickers” is more of a lashing out, with Garofalo tearing into suck-ups and parasites with cutting words: “how do you sleep so sound when the sky is falling and your neck’s in the ground?” My favorite of these tracks is probably “Pacemaker,” which goes in a more internal, atmospheric direction with haunting synths and a nearly spoken word vocal that hits close to home. “Nothing hits harder than steps not taken,” and “they worry so much about violence, but it’s the monotony that will kill you” are the sort of harsh-but-real lines that give this EP a legitimate edge. The rumbling “Goodfaith” closes things out, and I interpret it as being about how everyone shouts past each other now and how frustrating it is to try to have any kind of intellectual debate anymore. “What’s the use when everything is true?” sums up most of the discourse now where people create their own individual realities and have built up walls against any criticism or debate.
The hard-hitting lyrics and the aggressive sound give Heavy Feelings some actual abrasiveness — it has the provocative nature of punk in terms of probing and asking questions without the annoying performative aspect. This duo has channeled a lot of frustration and angst into an EP that packs more of a punch than almost any recent full-length release.
The Noise Made By People 