The Scary Jokes is a New Jersey band with a saccharine and deliberately obfuscating sound, in which they hid layers of isolation and depression under a quilt of bitter, brightly colored taffy. Now a three-piece, the group started out as the bedroom HQ'd project of Liz Lehman back in 2014 as a vent to release the exhaust of processed emotions. The band just released their third album BURN PYGMALION!!! A Better Guide to Romance on Needle Juice, prompting the label to also reissue a remastered version of The Scary Joke's 2016 record April Fools. It's this album that I want to talk about today. Not that BURN PYGMALION!!! isn't also great, but it just hits in a different kind of way.
BURN PYGMALION!!! is a more ambitious project, with a fuller sound, constructed around a narrative where a woman learns to live outside of herself, despite the risks, and accepts the vulnerable being open to others requires. It basically mirrors Shinji's emotional arch and journey from the original series run of Neon Genesis Evangelion. While I know the album is not about them specifically, I still can't help but imagine, while the last track on BURN PYGMALION!!! plays ("Bets Against the Void"), a blue-sky backdrop where the entire Needle Juice team, Liz's friends, the rest of Scary Joke's live band, plus Calvin Johnson and Neil Cicierega, form a loose circle around Liz to clap and cheer "Congratulations" in an entirely sincere succession. It's a kind and somewhat affirmation album, and you should pick it up if that's the kind of thing you are looking for right now. April Fools, however, is a much different experience.
April Fools is more like a ricin-coated Warther's Original- a deadly, jagged, and indigestible pill that is never-the-less sweet to the taste. It's the loadstone of the band's catalog at the moment and there is good reason why it has been remixed and reissued. The burden of existence which April Fools speaks to with such cheer is probably even more relevant at a time when the entire world is intimately acquainted with the mental effects and realities of isolation due to lockdowns, the paranoia surrounding a fast, adapting and deadly virus, and the broad societal indifference to the human costs imposed by both. Released in 2016 and produced entirely in Garage Band, April Fools is surprisingly detailed in terms of its sequencing and textures, and accomplishes the task of melding K-Records styled loverock with queer informed bedroom punk in a way that captures the essence of many acts outside of either scene, such as the delicacy of Frankie Cosmos's early demos and EPs, as well as the tight, melodramatic and allegorical phrasing of Say Anything's Max Bemis.
There are some brilliant metaphors for the experience of depression on April Fools, the first, and most penetrating of which, that comes to mind is the discreetly threatening "Icicles," which, through the hum of a warm synth babble and the snap of a bubbly, super-crunchy beat, it illustrates the experience of psychic death, forced ego depletion, and a retreat into a revenge fantasy. The song speaks to the hope that your implosion will somehow destroy both you and the person who's responsible for causing you to feel like less than nothing- like a black hole inverting itself to become a cosmic lance that is then driven through the heart of a radioactive and universe devouring dragon. It's definitely a relatable sentiment, and one that might have crossed your mind as a consolation in situations where you've felt yourself unraveling while being forced to work or socialize with a deeply manipulative person.
A similarly sardonic and risible description of dealing with damaging personalities while in a state of mental distress can be found in the tiny, gleaming, and reflective shine of "Blood from the Concrete" which sees Liz depicting an act of self-disassembly in order to accommodate someone else's emotional needs- literally tearing themselves apart to make a highway for someone else to drive on, and paving the road to hell with the best of intentions, as well as their own blood, flesh, and bone, in the process. Then there is the wet slapping beat of "Apple Pie" which is a tumid and cloying number that hides a hint of iron and salt, like a puff pastry filled with pureed human hearts and unrequited emotions. The lofty croon of "Catabolic Seed" is also notable for its spinning synth melody which resembles an abstracted form of an alarm bell sounding in Liz's brain as everything around them that was once solid, miraculously, and terribly, dissipates into a cloud of condensed moisture and vapor.
Even in the depths of all these precious pronouncements of despair, Liz does manage to hint at some signs of growth, such as on the smooth swaying tide of chirps and glittery, gargling beats that keeps the second to last track "Pleasure Cruise" afloat, a song where they describe the dangers of giving yourself over to fantasy and worlds of pure pleasure as a way to avoiding pain, and how this vain escape attempt can cause you to dissolve entirely, leaving nothing behind but debris, or in this case, a pair of shoes that has washed up on a beach in Ecuador.
In sum, the thoughts and emotions expressed on April Fools are both desperate and insightful, and the words and sounds through which they are conveyed are gorgeously assembled. These songs may not have necessarily come from a healthy place, but I can't help but believe that it was cathartic and therapeutic to expel all this darkness in such a beautiful way- at least, that's the way it feels from the vantage point of both a listener as well as someone who's felt a lot of the things that are probably being sung about on this record.
