With the world perpetually feeling like it's about to lurch off its axis and go peeling off into the starry abyss, keeping yourself out of a state of delirium can be a full-time commitment. Like with any long-term obligations, though, sometimes you just need a break and to let yourself have a manic episode now and again- you know, as a little treat. That seems to be the angle Swedish synth-punks Shady Lady and the Malefactor are coming from, and it's working out just dandy for them on their peculiarly monikered debut EP, A Nickname. Sounding like a demented B-52s who have timeskipped backward from a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-esque future hellscape to our present day, they embody a playfully antagonistic bacchanal of paranoia and tinfoil-chewing tenacity, folded into the ragged swaddle of siren-spiral sonics, lances of lysergic oscillations, and an afterburn of radiant space-aged sanguinity that's become twisted and scorched to the bone while plummeting through the acidic atmosphere of our waste-trap of a planet. Big proclamatory hooks hassle the senses and redecorate the interior of your headcase to make it ready for a host of unsettled moods, observations, and atypical trysts in a kind of inverted cerebral feng shui, digging out a firepit atop your brainstem in which a blaze of impish psychic turmoil can burn unobstructed. It all might be a bit much to swallow if it weren't so infectiously catchy, but there is no panacea for this kind of cognitive virus Shady Lady and the Malefactor are passing around- you just have to let this strain of rock and roll rubella roil until the fever breaks- which frankly, doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon. Get ready to spin-out in style!
