《Pinned》是A Place to bury Strangers的第五張完整專輯,可看得出他們認真地將種種艱難時刻化為創作,成軍十年以上的他們,知道停留不是唯一選項,在2016美國總統大選後,再次發行了力作。這張專輯是由團員們對於社會現況、政治、生死、選擇、一切的起源跟結束作了辯論及探討,不斷創作,質疑自己的同時,卻也是自信地向著大眾發聲。
隨著”Never Coming Back”的開場,漸進的合聲、眩暈的吉他、不鬆懈的Bass聲帶出專輯主概念,”Execution”一曲提點政府領出的騙局以及人該如何靜觀其中,”Theres only one of us”對於現在政治現況採和諧態度應對。A Place to Bury Strangers 非常的肯定又在時間流逝、環境大變的同時保有能夠完整自己的音樂。
This April marks the release of Pinned, their fifth full-length and an album that finds them converting difficult moments into some of their most urgent work to date. Its their first since the 2016 election, and their first since the 2014 closing of Death By Audio, the beloved Brooklyn DIY space where Ackerman lived, worked, and created with complete freedom. “After DBA closed, I moved to an apartment in Clinton Hill,” he says. “I couldnt make too much noise, couldnt disturb my neighbors. I would just sit there and write with a drum machine. It had to be about writing a good song and not about being super, sonically loud.”
There are searing meditations on truth and government-led conspiracies (“Execution”), as well as haunting, harmonized responses to the tensions of our current political climate (“Theres Only One of Us”). It all opens with “Never Coming Back,” a frightening crescendo of group vocals, vertiginous guitar work, and Lunadons unrelenting bass. “That song is a big concept,” Ackermann says. “You make these decisions in your life…youre contemplating whether or not this will be the end. You think of your mortality, those moments you could die and what that means. Youre thinking about that edge of the end, deciding whether or not its over. When youre close to that edge, you could teeter over.”
Its a clear and honest statement of intent, not just for everything that follows, but for this band as a whole. “As things go on, you dont want them to be stagnant,” Ackermann says. “Being a band for ten years, its hard to keep things moving forward. I see so many bands that have been around and theyre a weaker version of what they used to be. This band is anti-that. We try to push ourselves constantly, with the live shows and the recordings. We always want to get better. Youve got to dig deep and take chances, and sometimes, I questioned that. It took really breaking through to make it work. I think we did that.”
They definitely did.