Right here’s the start of an unfunny joke: “Thurston Moore walks into an In Utero session.” Right here’s the start of one other unfunny joke: “Umpteenth indie rock band tries to sound like Thurston Moore walked into an In Utero session.” Influences develop into jokes after they’re hole, “worn on sleeves” like designer on a model. (Higher get in line.) In the fitting palms, homage is a launchpad—much less in regards to the previous than the bizarre, oddly acquainted factor it’s rising into. Few perceive this higher than Voyeur, a New York band that runs the town’s historical past via a funhouse mirror and emerges with a twisty, well-studied tackle many years’ price of alt-rock squall. One thing Turns into You, their newest EP, is No Wave meets Nirvana meets the sweaty solipsism of lonely subway rides. It isn’t a joke; it’s the work of a band price taking severely.
In an underground New York context, Voyeur practically qualify as a supergroup—you would possibly acknowledge singer-guitarist Jake Lazovick as Sitcom, bassist Joe Kerwin because the mind behind the e-newsletter You Missed It, or singer-guitarist Sharleen Chidiac as a founding father of the efficiency area Pageant. Their method to post-punk is each starry-eyed and squalid, just like the unusual affection a lifelong city-dweller would possibly really feel for derelict buildings. Comparable dichotomies—ugly and plush, filthy and romantic, severe and barely self-deprecating—comprise the scaffolding of their method. However what makes them such a jolt is how adeptly they dart between extremes. Ugly, the debut EP they launched final February, so proficiently channeled alt-rock’s previous that at occasions it appeared like a actually good parody. Take “Massive Resolution,” through which a foamy-mouthed Lazovick performs frenzied incel over a fee-fi-fo-fum rhythm part. It feels like Kurt Cobain stumbled into the improper rehearsal area, mentioned what the hell, and began jamming with Steve Shelley. It additionally sounds unbelievably stable—like a band that’s performed collectively for 20 years, not one.
This holds true all through One thing Turns into You, a follow-up that retains alt-rock influences on the forefront, however reroutes them in riskier methods. It’s extra insular than the lovestruck Ugly, a wintry antidote to that challenge’s roaring romantics. The frigid glare of this new EP befits a New York lineage of off-kilter bands who extracted epics from emotional distance. It’s one factor for a two-guitar lineup to weaponize each six-strings as a wall of scuzz, however one other—barely harder—factor to make each guitars interlock uneasily, a tightrope of arpeggios and sickly maintain. The interaction makes even essentially the most simple songs, like “Spirit,” really feel imbued with one thing sinister: a creeping feeling that at any second, this might all collapse. Generally it does and the deconstructions are gut-churning and elegant, like watching a managed demolition. By the ultimate minute of “Look By way of You,” a slow-burn guitar showcase that devolves towards “The Diamond Sea” territory, the one survivor is screeching suggestions, wailing like an everlasting police siren.