Activity with Doom Flower

The band’s most collaborative album to date and follow-up to their 2020 debut LP Unmask Whoever, Spirit in the Room was written and recorded during the pandemic, “to keep from losing our minds”, as Johnson explains. The inherent limitations of lockdown meant that the band had to strip down the process considerably, relying heavily on processed samples and drum machines to sketch early ideas and begin to process the collective trauma. It was also around this time that Johnson experienced a series of personal tragedies, namely the loss of his mother to pancreatic cancer. “The grief was (and sometimes is) this colossal thing,” Johnson explains, “and I kept finding myself thinking of how I could find her or get in touch with her, like there was a phone number or address and I just had to find it.” 

The 11-song set–also featuring tracks sung/written by Rees and DiGioia–ultimately reflects the band’s deep anxiety about the modern world while simultaneously displaying their immense gratitude and—believe it or not—joy. As Rees describes it, “One moment it’s bottomless shearing chaotic noise, and the next it’s a sweet melody. Sometimes at the same time.”

This dichotomy seems to set Activity apart from their peers in the noise rock world. On the one hand, Spirit in the Room is a harrowing journey through a Bosch-like landscape of illness, global capital, and human-caused destruction. On the other hand, it’s a room full of friends who are simply trying to make it through the day and process this world that we’ve created. When asked why this album needed to be made, Johnson put it best: “None of us can stand to not make music is all, really.”

with
Doom Flower

· 21+