Louise Jaunet | Music journalist

REVIEW

Coming now to full maturation since the MAX BLONDA EP released in 2017, Hot Garbage is the kind of psychedelic band that grows darker and dirtier with each record, making detritus sounds groovy, sexy and attractive enough to trick a rat into a trap. For their new record Precious Dream, released on Montreal-based label Mothland (Atsuko Chiba, Gloin, Yoo Doo Right) and Brussel-based label EXAG’ Records (Tamar Aphek, La Jungle, SLIFT), Juliana Carlevaris (bass, vocals), Alex Carlevaris (guitar, vocals), Dylan Gamble (keyboards, vocals) and Mark Henein (drums) have once again called upon producer Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck, No Joy, !!!) to harness the driving energy behind the band, forced to do the recordings separately during the pandemic isolation.

As an active member of the underground scene in Toronto (Crystal Lake, Hollowfest, Night Owl), Hot Garbage is known for channeling the DIY ethos of the current modern psychedelic wave through its cathartic live shows. This reputation built over the years made the band tour throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe and share the stage with big names such as Osees, Ty Segall, JJUUJJUU, Mdou Moctar, Wand, Kikagaku Moyo, and Dead Meadow.

Exploring themes like loss, resilience, and solitude, Precious Dream is a journey that spirals from feelings of fear, dread, and impending danger while facing the dark dilemma of voluntary amnesia and dream confusion. With a fusion of dark post-punk and motorik krautrock, the album features reverb-soaked vocals, thunderous beats, and fuzzed-out riffs meant to exorcize the demons that rummage through the junk of the mind. From the brutal wake-up call of the maniacal garage track “Snooze You Lose,” the threatening surf rock sound of “Lowering,” the Lynchian madhouse story of “Mystery” to the desperate psychedelic prayer of “Erase My Mind,”

Hot Garbage shows its teeth a little bit more on this sophomore album. It deepens its ”mystery rock” concept by opening the doors to an extremely complicated world made of phantoms, abstract bending tunnels, and X-ray visions. Under the danger of a bloody red sun, Hot Garbage urges its listeners to get lost, to run as fast as they can, and to catch their dream before it goes away after awakening. Remember, if you snooze, you lose. Be free, go now, and live that stupid trashy dream of yours.

There are many optical illusions that we encounter on a daily basis without being identified as such. The perception of these kinds of impossible objects follows an unusual path and the person who perceives it is aware that something is happening in their brain, to the point of creating a new aesthetic of the world in their mind. To help launch its second album Precious Dream to be released on 19 January 2024 via Mothland and Exag’ Records, the quartet from Toronto Hot Garbage has just released the second single “Mystery,” a cathartic and powerful psychedelic track that echoes the garage beginnings of Osees or the spooky songs of Frankie and the Witch Fingers, and plays with this concept.

Produced by Graham Walsh (METZ, Preoccupations, Holy Fuck, !!!), this new track recalls the fuzzed-out riffs of A Place To Bury Strangers or the twisted, nightmarish surf rock accents of The Cramps. For anyone familiar with the band’s catalogue, Hot Garbage opens the doors to a whole new world, revealing part of the extremely complicated operation we call “seeing.”

Directed by Nika Belianina and Michael Goodin, the Lynchian video is constructed as a strange, oniric and absurd stroll through a funhouse where we meet a stellar fairy, a crazy penguin, and a diabolical deer, like a sort of construction of three people wrapped into one. You’re probably going to be skeptical, nobody can build a personality of that kind … could that mean that the mind of a human being is an impossible object? It remains a mystery.