It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Tera Melos. 4 years to be exact. And, oh my, are they back with a vengeance. Trash Generator, the trio’s third full length, is an astonishing blast of confidence and rejuvenation. It sounds as if the downtime has recharged the band with an entirely new sense of purpose.
The performances are brilliant and sharp, the songs concise yet intricately detailed, and the album production deftly captures the band’s strength as a live unit. Their dalliances with mellower psychedelic phrases on their previous two albums, X’ed Out (2013) and Patagonian Rats (2010) are significantly trimmed and instead utilized as colorations within a swirling maelstrom of righteous aggro punk-jazz abandon. Tera Melos — guitarist/vocalist Nick Reinhart, bassist Nathan Latona and drummer John Clardy — have learned to stop worrying and just be Tera Melos.
Regardless of the group’s own potentially esoteric goals, if you’re not reaching for the “next level” at every turn, you’re supposedly not doing it right. “ “We made Trash Generator because we just wanted to get together, have some fun, and make something that we think is cool.” The trio decamped to San Diego in late 2016 to record at Singing Serpent Studios with Ben Moore (Hot Snakes, Pinback). “We stayed in a spare place at Rob Crow’s house which had a barracks kind of feel to it,” Clardy explains. “We’d come home exhausted each day and fall asleep within an hour. It was very spartan when away from the studio.” That mindset clearly informs the direct, in-your-face energy of Trash Generator.
The performances are brilliant and sharp, the songs concise yet intricately detailed, and the album production deftly captures the band’s strength as a live unit. Their dalliances with mellower psychedelic phrases on their previous two albums, X’ed Out (2013) and Patagonian Rats (2010) are significantly trimmed and instead utilized as colorations within a swirling maelstrom of righteous aggro punk-jazz abandon. Tera Melos — guitarist/vocalist Nick Reinhart, bassist Nathan Latona and drummer John Clardy — have learned to stop worrying and just be Tera Melos.
Regardless of the group’s own potentially esoteric goals, if you’re not reaching for the “next level” at every turn, you’re supposedly not doing it right. “ “We made Trash Generator because we just wanted to get together, have some fun, and make something that we think is cool.” The trio decamped to San Diego in late 2016 to record at Singing Serpent Studios with Ben Moore (Hot Snakes, Pinback). “We stayed in a spare place at Rob Crow’s house which had a barracks kind of feel to it,” Clardy explains. “We’d come home exhausted each day and fall asleep within an hour. It was very spartan when away from the studio.” That mindset clearly informs the direct, in-your-face energy of Trash Generator.
TRACK LISTING
1 System Preferences
2 Your Friends
3 Trash Generator
4 Warpless Run
5 Dyer Ln
6 GR30A11
7 Men's Shirt
8 Don't Say I Know
9 A Universal Gonk
10 Like A Dewclaw
11 Drawing
12 Super Fx