Cinemartyr has set quite a high standard for themselves coming into the making of their new album Opt Out, and while it’s easy to get caught up in your own ambitions when you’re working with the kind of collective skillset these New Yorkers are, they’ve got the artistic maturity to stay in their lane while giving us a show we’re not likely to soon forget in this latest release. Opt Out, comprised of just ten songs, hits like a juggernaut – an out-of-control car crash that’s unfolding in slow motion, but even its most comprehensively physical moments feature a precision I wish I could hear more of in the American underground today.
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Music videos for Opt Out’s three singles, “No Legacy,” “Terms and Conditions,” and “Delete Yourself,” certainly extend some of the surreal themes suggested by the material itself, and I think there’s something to be learned about the additional songs in this record from the visual scheme we get out of these three tracks. Being that all of them are devoid of the predictable and steeped in the personality of the players, there’s an implied continuity with songs like “Dead Influencer” and “I Want a Gun” that’s hard to ignore if you’ve heard the complete LP, especially before taking a look at the imagery here.
I think that while “Terms and Conditions,” “Everything Dysmorphia,” and “Meth of the Masses” highlight some of the qualities that have made a lot of us fans of the Cinemartyr brand, there’s something more in “Water Graphics,” “I Want a Gun,” “Art Forum,” and “Cancellation Policy” that points towards a mathier direction than they’ve taken in the studio thus far. It’s not a look they would struggle to wear by any means, and I love that they’re using contrast as a way of depicting their ambitions beyond what is being stated through structure and songcraft.
The natural depth of the amplification in “Art Forum,” “Meth of the Masses,” and “No Legacy” is made all the more impactful and present for us thanks to the chemistry that these players have, and while I’m not privy to what the recording sessions were like for Opt Out, I feel a sense of leadership so much more here than I did in Death of the First Person, Cinemartyr’s last record (and one of my favorites to come from an indie rock unit in the past five years). They just sound tighter and incredibly more in tune with what they want to do.
APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/opt-out/1606532659
I was admittedly expecting the moon with Opt Out this summer, and I’m pleased to say that Cinemartyr did not let me down with any of the content they recorded for this tremendous fourth LP bearing their name in the byline. Having had the chance to hear the album before its official June release date, I was instantly immersed in the provocative tonalities and musical adventures the band takes in each of the ten songs here, and I can see where a lot of listeners who might not have been as intrigued with past Cinemartyr work might find this just a bit easier to get into.
Chadwick Easton