Provoker is such a strange creature to me. The LA group replicates cyber-punk aesthetics to package downtempo pop and R'nB, which always seems to be in the process of sinking into its own shadow, like a prehistoric tiger proudly drowning in a tar pit. They remind me a lot of The Weeknd if he sobered up and hired Drab Majesty to back him up on an album. I'm obviously not put off by the group's more accessible inclinations, but what keeps me coming back to their records is the subtly alien and arrestingly rawboned quality of their grooves, especially the guitar work, which has this ugly and lonesome jilt to it, like its violently shrugging away from a reassuring hand on its shoulder or some similar extension of human warmth. Their 2018 debut EP Dark Angel is particularly good at giving this wanton sort of cold shoulder to the listener. Opener "Flinch Awake" is a drizzly veil of nightmare-gaze, whose clawing chord progressions absolutely give the impression that you are being stalked through the entirety of its run time. Much later, the possessive closer "Body Vehicle" revels in an oppressive sort of sodden angst, like someone had seeded a cloud with annotated sheet music transcribed from The Cure's early-80s oeuvre, and now it's pouring buckets of melanocytic acidic tears all down our backs. Then there is the title track, which begins by writhing with stark and sinister assurance before settling into a plaintive, heart-breaking dalliance while bladed riffs pierce its back and sides like the proverbial Saint Sebastian- a martyr for its ill-fated passions. Provoker still has a lot to offer these days, but they really tapped into something dire and divine on Dark Angel.
