Bonnie’s State of Mind is the second LP from Victoria’s post-punk trio Freak Heat Waves and it’s probably the most gnarled set of wax from Hockey Dad yet.
The minimal (yet muscular) krautrock that typified FHW’s first LP and live performances has been largely scraped out filled instead with samplers and other ’80s-sounding electronics. The result is a kind of divided vision — the sound of a band trying to eke out some new ideas with one foot lodged in its past. It isn’t until track 3 the sleazy cruisin’ “Design of Success” that a “song” even emerges sounding like nothing else in their catalogue.
That BSOM was pieced together in different studios over the better part of a year further lends to this sort of transitional feel. The trio’s minimalist thud does return through the middle of the record but there’s nothing extended — it’s mere moments that flash by alternately errant and cerebral. “A Civil Servant Awakening” and “Melt in Your Home” both cut at three minutes though one could imagine the band jamming them for eight. I could stand to listen to the U.S. Maple-esque guitar sinews at the end of “Civil Servant” for longer please.
BSOM is a record I keep envisioning as a tranquilized rhino: capable of destruction stumbling around between states horny (sorry) and languid with strange dreams. Not always pleasant but what is?
