Written by a band on the edge of breaking up (founders Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen fell out during its conception) and mixing scuzzy nursery rhyme melodies with lyrics that lean into self abandonment, “Cosplay” conjures up songs which gnaw at the listeners deepest fears. The title “Cosplay“ and the visual (the band posing in grotty looking masks, hiding their identity) leans into the fourth trauma response fawning (after fight, flight, freeze) where people blend in, Zelig-like, in order to survive. On the lurching, building-to-breaking-point ‘Candle‘, the protagonist is broken (“I’m just a candle fitting in/ I don’t get fat, I don’t eat anything“), while the moody ‘Life In This Body’ (“I have loved every version of you“) speaks to the splintering of the self.
Throughout the album, the band repurpose phrases from fizzy, quasi-novelty pop songs and it feels like a juddering wi-fi signal or a radio going in and out of reception. The call and response of Toni Basil‘s ‘Mickey‘ (‘”Hey! Mickey! You’re So Fine! You Blow My Mind! Hey Mickey!“) becomes a lurching, lonely come-on on ‘Waxwing‘; Shaggy‘s ‘Boombastic‘ reads as another line of self abasement for the desperate characters in ‘Jetplane‘. It plays as meta-commentary around the idea of costume and mask wearing, underlining the emptiness of ‘performance without context’. They are also sonic band aids, where words have failed and real connection is oblique and fragmented. “Cosplay” leaves you feeling unsettled but it’s a brilliant, unforgettable gasp from the forgotten.
The Fat Angel Sings 