If albums had to be pitched to labels in the same way as movies, many would never get made.
Not so for Joy of Sects, Chemtrails‘ third release on Swedish tastemakers PNKSLM. They signed Chemtrails after seeing their first gig at Trans Pride in Brighton.
But if they did have to summarise Joy of Sects while label honchos Luke Reilly and Johan Alm lit up a fat one, it might go something like this… ‘Picture the scene: Six months after the apocalypse, streets, once teeming with life, form the brittle shell of a city whose ruins stand like hollow witnesses to man’s arrogance. The heavy silence in the air is broken only by the occasional whisper of wind through shattered windows or the ache of fractured structures. The sky, once a vast expanse of blue, has surrendered to the perpetual murk of ash and dust. But somewhere, in a bunker studio deep below it all, with guitar amps and instruments surrounded by a scattering of energy drink cans and pot noodles, there’s a crazy band playing the only songs that will ever need to be heard again…’
Joy of Sects sits in a previously unoccupied niche that, given the state of the world in 2024, feels like it’s about to get very real. Call it Glamourgeddon, Apopcalypso Punk, Fallout Indie or whatever you like, behind the killer guitar hooks, sardonic smiles and incisive wit, there is a serious post-everything, end-of-humanity, that’s it all-done-and-no-cigar kind of vibe to this album that is hard to shake off. It’s a delicious creepiness that Chemtrails have always had, but in the hands of producer Margo Broom (Fat White Family, Big Joanie) it scales up so magnificently and subtly, that you find yourself singing along gleefully as the world burns.
While urging us through their bizarre radioactive fun fair of sleazy fuzz punk and mutant psych disco, Mia Lust’s lyrics come for social injustice with fast and brutally humourous slashes. With track titles like ‘Detritus Andronicus’, ‘Mushroom Cloud 9’, and ‘Apocalypstick’ they put the ‘pun’ into sucker punch, and, best of all Chemtrails sound like they’re having fun in the process.
There are some brilliantly weird pop moments on Joy of Sects. Drop into any part of this album and you’ll be manically bobbing your head within seconds. ‘Superhuman Superhighway’ overclocks its krautrock rhythms with a clattering feverishness. The mesmerising coda of sweet and sour chord shifts at the end of ‘Business Class War Paint’ is chef’s kiss, and ‘Bang Bang’ takes 70s glam rock to the bank and steals its cash cards. Other highlights are ‘Join Our Death Cult’, which Chemtrails describe as “disgustingly poppy pop,” a blend of Bossanova-era Pixies, Los Campesinos! and Oasis Citrus Punch, and then there’s the thunderous psych guitar and back beats on ‘Sycophant’s Paradise’ as Lust sings “are you ready to be brutalised?”.
Joy of Sects holds up cracked shards of mirror to societal absurdities with a wicked smile and a heavy dose of potassium iodine. It’s a joyously sinister ride, a soundtrack to the apocalypse that makes you laugh and thrash about in equal measure. It’s really good, but the crucial question remains, have Chemtrails become more pop, or has pop become more Chemtrails?
