Today we get a two for one review, with a full-length album by the Paranoid Style and then an EP they released the following year. The total is only 16 items and 46 songs, so when I downloaded them through Bandcamp it was a natural fit to turn them into a single listen.
While the listen was combined, I’m still listing them as separate entries. Rules are rules.
Disc 1791 is…Rolling Disclosure
Disc 1792 is…Underworld USA (EP)
Artist: The Paranoid Style
Year of Release: 2016 (Rolling Disclosure) and 2017 (Underworld USA)
What’s up with the Cover? Lead singer Elizabeth Nelson likes sitting down. There is really no occasion that doesn’t call for a good sit down.
Reading a book in the middle of some railroad tracks? Best done sitting – just remember to bring a folding chair; railroad ties can be dirty, and you wore that nice dress.
Feel a bit out of breath on the way up the stairs to your apartment? Another good opportunity for a sit. These stairs could also be dirty, but stairs are generally more conducive for a good sit than railroad ties, so by all means, take a seat.
Spoiler alert, future reviews are currently 67% likely to feature Nelson sitting somewhere. The woman sits a lot.
How I Came To Know It: Earlier this year I discovered the Paranoid Style through a review of their 2024 release, “The Interrogator” I read on Pitchfork. I instantly loved their sound and began digging through their back catalogue.
It is all available on Bandcamp, which is where I got these two albums. Unfortunately, they don’t seem inclined to release on CD, so it had to be a download. Nobody’s perfect…
How It Stacks Up: I have five Paranoid Style albums, including one EP. Of those albums I put “Rolling Disclosure” in at #5 and “Underworld USA” at #2.
Ratings: Rolling Disclosure: 3 stars; Underworld USA: 4 stars
Rolling Disclosure:
Rolling Disclosure is the Paranoid Style’s first album, but from the first notes you can tell this is a band who knows what they are about. Fully formed, like Athena being born directly out of Zeus’ head, the Paranoid Style lock in early to their sound.
That sound is a punk garage rock combined with frenetic New Wave that felt like the second coming of Blondie. Not derivative, but more the inheritor of that sound. The music often sits in front of the beat (as New Wave is wont to do) but it also utilizes that post-disco sway that Blondie evokes.
Elizabeth Nelson’s voice is a low register vibrato, and carefully enunciated words that are the paragon of phrasing and timing (another must-have for New Wave style sound, lest it drag).
Paranoid Style songs never drag, and I found myself breathlessly anticipating what Nelson was going to sing about next. In this regard, the Athena reference is doubly apt, with songs that are a word soup of phrases and images that have no business being successfully sung into a bar of music, and yet somehow work anyway.
Case in point, the opening track, “The Ambassador’s Morning Lift” (one of many songs with long complicated titles), featuring such clever turns of phrase as “It’s useful to keep up disappearances” that trips by so fast you might miss it the first time, and then you deliciously anticipate it on future listens. That’s the pop centre to all of the Paranoid Style’s punk coating.
“Giving Up Early (On Tomorrow)” makes the chorus the most interesting line (and the title). For anyone who has ever had a night out where you set out to make bad drink decisions, and early morning starts be damned. Or maybe it isn’t alcohol fueled at all, just an internally generated existential crisis. This is the song for both those things. It also has a line:
“I was caught somewhere between
Jupiter and Apollo
And tonight I'm giving up early
On tomorrow”
That had me thinking about that Athena thing all over again.
My biggest issue with “Rolling Disclosure” is the production, which is a bit too garage-y for my tastes. This is clearly deliberate and speaks more to my biases than anything wrong. Nevertheless, I found the mix was a bit too muddy, taking away from the sharp and witty delivery of Nelson’s lyrics.
Underworld USA
Underworld USA gives us more of the same New Wave/punk crossover we were introduced to on “Rolling Disclosure”, but overall a consistently higher quality of both songwriting and production.
For production, things are crisper and the backing band gets a greater chance to shine, which they put to good use, and the arrangements are a bit more thoughtful overall. Is it less punk as a result? Maybe, but not in a bad way.
For songwriting, the Paranoid Style add in elements of hard rock and sixties pop into their mix. It doesn’t change the overall flavour of what they do, but presents a few more layers and makes the songs each stand out more individually.
The opening and title track explore the grubby underbelly of corporate America or maybe politics (the band does hail from Washington DC) or maybe some combination of both. This track, and many that follow on “Underworld USA” aren’t afraid to use the clever wordplay to twist the knife into institutional malaise.
My favourite bit of beat poetry (which is a bit what it sounds like to listen to Nelson sing) is this stanza from “Dominoes in Drag”:
“Making short work
Of a long night
In your slit skirt
With your steak knives
With the stakes high”
This song ranges all over, but this glitzy but predatory descriptor of a fancy dinner event rings out with apocalyptic beauty. Fun fact – later in the song they once again reference Apollo!
The album ends with “Revision of Love” which is more of a seventies barroom banger, converted into a critique of economic models, philosophy and the whys and wherefores of making art, ostensibly wrapped around writing a song about some woman named Loretta. Like most Paranoid Style songs, there is a lot going on here, and the dense and fast-moving imagery requires multiple listens, but the effort is worth it.
Even if you decide you don’t want to explore just why that guy Apollo keeps showing up, or to go learn more about Pascal’s Wager (also referenced), you’ll still have fun, because the music is fucking great.
Best tracks (Rolling Disclosure: The Ambassador’s Morning Lift, Giving Up Early (On Toorrow), Daniel in the Basement
Best Tracks (Underworld USA): Underworld USA, Dominoes in Drag, Hawk vs. Prez, Dedicated Glare, Revision of Love,
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