Futo: Futo's Greatest Hits
While Patrick Brick’s music continues to evolve and vary, flitting between danceable synth-pop and lilting acoustic guitar, the one constant in his repertoire is an ability to intertwine the comic and tragic to the point of ambiguity. Take “The Internet Told Me I Have Cancer Again,” the opening track from Futo’s Greatest Hits. Despite that winsome refrain and a head-bob-inducing beat, the song presents a heart-wrenching fear of death only familiar to someone plagued by loss. Thank your lucky stars we have someone in town who can write a song ruminating on the end of life and use a faux-Craigslist ad about necromancers as its hook.
Muuy Biien: Age of Uncertainty
If you caught Muuy Biien live in 2016, you knew what was coming, but that didn’t make the revisionary wallop of Age of Uncertainty any less abrupt. Shedding its hardcore punk skin, the new iteration of the band flexes a funkier muscle on its latest long-player, the majority of which was recorded live at Chase Park Transduction. Singer Josh Evans turns his lyrical focus outward, coating bassist Parks Miller and drummer Jacob Lake’s lockstep groove with unfavorable critiques of modern society’s shortcomings.