No one expects an avant-garde power trio from South Australia to write the soundtrack to a world we’re all too afraid to admit we’re living in. Yet here come The Only Objects with “Access Will Be Retained,” daring us to stare into the awkward digital abyss—if there’s even an “abyss” left to stare at, or has it just been flattened into a loop?
Patrick Lang’s angsty, half-dissociated vocals float above this kaleidoscopic universe like someone trying to tune an old radio in a storm. The synths are tectonic plates shifting, and Zacc Breheny’s bass seems to pump both blood and oil, gritty, raw, yet too knowing, too precise not to feel orchestrated somehow. It’s a begging and a demand—are we surviving or performing survival?
At the heart of it all is Jack Degenhart’s saxophone. Never has an instrument sounded more like a frenzied, bird-like question mark crashing into tall buildings made of shattered memories. Brushed with an almost free jazz meltdown, his squalls turn dissonance into anthem, anarchistic yet celebratory. And really, isn’t that the flavor of today’s chaos? Control versus collapse, head-to-head, bodies swirling in the whirlwind.
Thematically, the song lives in a state of suspended crisis—can we forget the futures we were promised, or are we still waiting for them while skipping backwards? Sam Menzel’s drums maintain a militaristic precision like a heartbeat trapped in suspense, refusing resolution.
If Orwell had a garage band with Laurie Anderson on synths and some wild jazz cats from the future, it might still not sound like this, but they’d surely be jealous.
Leaving here feels unsolved, a question of choice vs inevitability. When you say “Access Will Be Retained,” it sounds less like a guarantee and more like a trap.
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