Ganser - Animal Hospital

The right songs, strung together, give a revitalized vision of our surroundings, as if fresh eyes can be granted by rhythm alone, find new shapes for the weathered wireframe of the world and see the shadows as they dance with the light of day. Animal Hospital, the new LP from Chicago art punks Ganser, is a monument to observation, a tome of stray thoughts gathered while moving through a crowd coalesced into a collective take on the absurd contradictions of lives moving past.

'Animal Hospital' is Ganser at their most dynamic, stretching the confines of their sonic boundaries into new territory, testing the elastic limits of sound. The core of the band, Alicia Gaines, Brian Cundiff, and Sophie Sputnik, remain steadfastly committed to propulsive patterns; drums that pound exacting beats on the heart, pulse quickened by bass and guitars, synths to calm the nerves. Building endless rhythm beneath feet moving in time on a dance floor, or a sidewalk masquerading as one.

Opening like a house on fire with “Black Sand,” led by drums that command an assembly of swirling guitars, tone like a razor's edge, shimmering, sharp, and sleek. All of it building to a fever pitch, with vocalist Sophie Sputnik taunting an unseen force “don’t speak, don’t say it, if you put in the air I might catch it”. Leading smoothly into the world cast in its shadow with “stripe,” a game of contrasting tone won easily by the strength of two vocalists. Here, we slow down, hold fast. Alicia Gaines shifts the propulsive energy into an alluring, smooth pace, the night is young and old all at once and there are both places to be and places to leave behind. A life of opportunity. Brian Cundiff providing percussive texture to the world alive in the song, analog and digital drums working in tandem to give depth of flavor. Bass that builds like bones in the body and lives there forever. With each new turn of a song, the dynamic contrast emerges again, push and pull, surge and retreat. Where “Grounding Exercises” soars beautifully like an ambient fever dream, half-remembered yet profoundly beautiful, “Half Plastic” kicks dirt up from the pit, throws fists into the air. A punk rock masterpiece that builds like electric current moving under the earth, emerging with a burst of static energy, a conducive spirit that binds eager listeners to a shared idea, all while Sputnik growls with the recollection of breath holding spells cast at a distance “I hold my breath till I see spots.”

What has been gathered here is a collection of observations, recollections of the minutes that turned to days spent witnessing the humanity within people shift and spin in new directions. People changed stripes and spots, or maybe they just revealed the marks they always held. Lives became held at a distance. Masks pulled tight. There’s a profundity to be found in exploring the surreal truths lurking in our hearts, that the sad and the mundane can play so effortlessly with the absurd and beautiful to make something haunting, something striking, songs that sting and soar and beg you to dance all at once.