“Have you ever felt like you were trapped riding shotgun in a car spinning out of control? Stuck, know the feeling well. This nightmarish joyride with a malicious stranger at the wheel comes straight from the lyrics of “gg”, the closing track on the Chicago post-punk group’s latest full-length Optimizer, their second release for Exploding in Sound and third album overall. The feeling of being unable to stop a machine hurtling toward danger by its own momentum pervades across the whole record. Optimizer reports live from the front lines of a society on the decline, where every attempt toward self-improvement only locks you into a more efficient downward spiral. Optimizer’s cover depicts a classical statue trapped in buffering hell while the album’s title below it sinks along a declining trajectory. The lyrics trace the same futility, taking stock not just of the delusional patterns around him but the diminishing returns of sticking to your guns with nothing but air left in the chambers. Turning their eye for political lyrics instead to more directly social subjects, Stuck see the world as one big commercial gym packed to the gills with debt-ridden and desperate marks who only tear their gaze away from the mirror to watch the latest pitch from the latest digital huckster promising a better you at a reasonable fee. Written directly on the heels of the band’s tour for 2023’s Freak Frequency, the album also grapples with the personal costs of devoting your life to music while the music industry crumbles around you. Optimizer continues Freak Frequency’s incorporation of synthesizers and also brings along more backing vocals, bigger choruses, and even blast beats. It is the most high-definition and physically propulsive Stuck record yet. Previous Stuck albums needled you, using fast twitch guitars to keep you on edge. Optimizer goes straight for the emotional haymakers. Along with classic egg punk fare you’d expect from Stuck on songs like “Net Negative” and “Less is More”, Optimizer provides plenty of new twists on their formula. “Deadlift” is slower and sadder, an unsparing look at the loneliness of workout culture, “Fire, Man” a sardonic twist on All American rock anthemics. Stuck have no illusions about solving the problem they’ve diagnosed here in short hand. On the contrary, Optimizer confronts the very idea of trying to solve life head on, drawing implicit connections between ideology and addiction. Every choice demands a sacrifice. The same instinct that drives us to simplify and streamline our lives can leave behind only our darkest and dumbest impulses. If there’s no escaping the ride we’re on, we might as well crank the dial.”
Zastava is a music maker of motor city’s new generation worthy of knowing their names, which are Mateja Matic, Arman Bonislawski, Cam Frank, and Ollie Elkus. On a night out in the East Village, I caught their set and though I had heard the recordings and been a fan, I was struck by their live performance. I was captivated. Inspired, even. I felt like I wished I had learned to play guitar instead of earning an English degree. Their fervor and precision chaos applied to an on-stage presence that was both confident and scrutable, assembled yet dangerous, combined with songs that are genuinely danceable and undeniably alluring and specifically and emphatically not the same old half-hearted sadboy dogshit being chucked out by the flacid idiots who happened upon a pirate stream of the Meet Me in the Bathroom documentary their first year at NYU film school and who plague dozens of curated ‘hot new indie’ Spotify playlists, all in my view added up to one thing for Zastava: quality. Zastava had the room - it was completely theirs - and their music earned them the right to it.” –monsterchildren.com