Invaders’ Dig a hole is a trippy fall down a psychedelic maelstrom. If the album cover didn’t gave it right away, the nine tracks with fuzzy guitars and overprocessed vocals that sound like the last breaths of a lost cosmonaut. It’s been a long road for this album, but now it’s achieving escape velocity (with a lil’ push from Karate Body Records). 

‘Bound and blown’. No punches are pulled. It’s a seedy track, with a sexy guitar lick moving slowly and the bass and the drums hypnotise with their mesmerising rhythm. Is the room careening or is it the alcohol messing with you. It’s all about the atmosphere with Invaders. Lyrics smell of desperation, like the lost souls in a long lost dive bar that last saw good business when Ike was the way forward. Worry not, ‘Amy’ is a track to get lost into and forget all the problems in your head.

Have I mentioned the fuzzy distortion sported here? ‘Electric snake’ makes the speakers tremble and the bass line remembers those avenues that zigged and zagged through the wrong (albeit fun) side of town. Mad pace that might seem like rhyme without reason, but believe you me: there is reason. It was left outside in the cold and here come the wolves.

Brrr. ‘Slight of hand’ is slower and maybe less noisy, but it sure is cinematic. Like the off-kilter sounds of Weird Western films, the ones that pretend to be a western but use supernatural elements, this has enough mojo to be a bad mescaline trip. The distorted ending is poignant.

Madness, strangeness, The Reign of the Weird. ‘Dig a hole’ has it all. The voice is now clear, but the message is still muddled. Nothing wrong with what has been said, but all the ideas floating in our heads from all the previous tracks are still sinking and slowly being assimilated when this one comes around to shake the foundations. Oh, well, nobody said it was going to be an easy trip. ‘Bottle rocket’ smoulders afterwards. Molasses on fire are friendlier. ‘Which face to show’ doesn’t make it easier. “How did you know?” is being repeated constantly, while the cacophony grows.

Will there be a peaceful rest stop in this strange, manic drive? ‘Magic hat trick’ is a reversal of roles: instrumentation is quiet (for the most part), it’s the vocals that have been transformed into something else. Whatever alchemy was used, the phantasmagoric result is unsettling and completely trippy.

Invaders. Picture a road trip/coming of age/whathaveyou drive through the desert. It’s all gone wrong and you’ve got Mickey and Mallory chasing you. If they don’t get you, Chigurh will. The end is nigh and the desperate thoughts in your head rush like bats out of hell. Their wings create sounds that resonate everywhere and in those sounds, there’s a strange, otherworldly voice. Add some drums and you’ve got Dig a hole.

Words: Sam J. Valdés López

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