The overall experience is simply a much more listenable one; the LP puncturing the occasionally overwhelming sense of foreboding and paranoia with one of positivity – euphoria, even – just as Flegel sings about “suicide machines” et al.
Preoccupations is a tough, black and resilient modern rock album. It takes an intense and undiluted look at the dark mental landscape of someone who is dealing with today's stresses and responsibilities. It doesn't attempt to try to explain them away; it just offers a vision of what it's like to live amidst them.
Preoccupations' greatest asset is in its breadth of ability; spontaneous, yet considered; off-kilter, but instinctive; eccentric, although well composed.
The darkness that seeps through Preoccupations' self-titled offering comes from a more personal place. Written amidst breakups and instability, the album is more introspective than its predecessor – and a hell of a lot more visceral.
There is a stout cohesiveness that gives Preoccupations a feeling of completion and resolute artistic confidence and its reverberations mount with close and repeated listens.
Preoccupations makes strides to shore up Preoccupations’ identity without losing the crucial spontaneity of their debut.
Their second record hits harder, digs deeper and lingers longer than that promising debut, and keeping all eyes on their art proves to be the best statement Preoccupations could ever have offered.
Preoccupations is a more coherent, more accessible set of songs that proves this band doesn't need an edgy name to attract the attention they deserve.
What makes Preoccupations much more than a circular exercise in self-analysis is the vitality of the music. There’s a tense, nervous energy running through all the tracks, which connect to each other like wires that spark electrical currents when they meet.
Understanding Preoccupations is easiest when setting it against Viet Cong. That record was marked by claustrophobic arrangements ... Preoccupations does away with the murkiness, sounding remarkably clear in contrast to its predecessor.
Preoccupations is focused on songcraft. The freewheeling, spiky abstractions peppered throughout the band’s earlier work as Viet Cong and Women are all but absent. While not exactly slick, the album has the polished dynamism of studio pop, its hooks varnished for maximum impact.
Preoccupations are steadying their footing here, both growing up and grounding themselves sonically.
Preoccupations is a strong follow-up to an excellent debut record. It showcases a band that is evolving and finding new ways to stretch out their sound.
The new material isn't a huge departure but does feature synths more prominently, and Preoccupations have embraced their 80s goth-pop tendencies more wholeheartedly.
The album gains momentum as it enters its second half, but it still sounds like they’ve lost some of the vigor and confidence of their debut.
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