Energy Drainer

Sometimes you can get everything you need to know about an album just from the title. In the case of Austin’s Spray Paint, their newest record Dopers – the second they’ve released just this year – it sounds like exactly the kind of erratic bummer you might expect. According to the band, the atmosphere of the record, which was recorded in the middle of a 66-city tour in the dead of summer, was inspired by the wild fires they saw burning on the drive from Portland to Sacramento, the bleakness of the location where they were recording, and observations from the 24 hour casino diner they ate at on the many sleepless nights spent recording the album, and that is exactly how it sounds.

The minimalist, droning tone of this album is set immediately in the opening track, “Bad Times,” which is, of course, as apt a title for the song as Dopers is for the album. Dopers is more sluggish and bare bones than Spray Paint’s earlier records, even June’s Punters on a Barge, which is saying something since the sarcastic, bored sounding trio would never exactly be called high energy. The two album do connect though, with the song “Chris’s Theme” no doubt being a call-back to the opening track on Punters, “Ian’s Theme.” The album’s peak comes halfway through the second to last song, “Anyone Else Want In,” and continues through to the stressfully quiet, stripped down and evocatively named closing track “Gravity Drainer.”

Dopers sneaks up on you. What initially may seem like another in a long list of listless post-punk releases this year gradually and painstakingly transforms into an album you won’t be able to get out of your head. Marking an interesting, if totally physically training, step in the band’s evolution, this album is hopefully an indicator of exciting things for Spray Paint. While it may be a relatively short album, Dopers, will pack an unsettling punch and leave you unsure of what to do next with your night. Maybe you should go to a diner.