album: Pleasure Vision - Bacchae
words: Sean Fennell
Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Why do I scroll? Do I like it? Does it make me happy? It’s the thing I do the most that I enjoy the least, and yet I open the tab, poke the little blue and white icon, and scroll into oblivion. We think about the things we hate all the time, but we rarely take the same time to consider the things that supposedly make us happy. Why? It’s questions like these that D.C. rockers Bacchae’s new LP Pleasure Vision underline so deftly; poking, prodding, and, at times, full-on attacking happiness from all angles till nothing is left unexamined.
Pleasure is not quantifiable, you can’t hold it, can’t have it, in a literal sense, but hell if you can’t want it. Bacchae opens the album with, “Leave Town”, a ripping, frantic, bursting sense of what that wanting can mean, and how it can warp and twist itself around those who’ve had a life of pleasure withheld. Jealousy and longing can quickly turn to anger and Bacchae vocalist Katie McD viscerally captures this struggle. “I want you to come to my house // and see what pain is really like” she wails, breath in short supply, cursing the lives humming along behind bulky, oak doors, inside tightly-closed windows, assuring them their troubles are nothing but trivial complaints.
“Hammer” peels back some of that anger, tempering the initial onslaught of “Leave Town” in favor of a larger sound and wider scope, raising McD’s vocals to a Beach Bunny-esque tenor and grappling with what it would mean to stop fighting so hard against contemptment. Accepting that pain isn’t the only way is harder than it sounds, but Bacchae wields the titular “Hammer” with withering confidence, come what may.
Of course, once you open the door to happiness, a lot more can squeeze through. Woven throughout Pleasure Vision are themes of sexuality, self-hate, toxicity, guilt and anger. While Bacchae is happy to tug at each of these threads, it’s with a clear eye toward how these ideas affect and influence our search for happiness that gives the record a clear through-line. The band cleverly plays with these themes outside of the lyrics as well, bouncing expectations off reality, stopping and starting, twisting and turning, showing off influences and skill in equal measure. Pleasure Vision is a record that tucks 2-minute blasts of punk next to swaying indie-pop, while mostly avoiding the whiplash that can come with these kinds of abrupt shifts in tone.
When the record comes together, as it does in the irascible and pointed “See It Coming”, it is something extraordinary. Very much the thesis of the album, the song is a herky-jerky march over the fractured landscape of Pleasure Vision, taking a six-note riff and cutting almost spoken-word vocals and turning the attention inward. “Giving into simple pleasure // is the pursuit of the worthless,” McD sings like a threat, slicing deep into the familiar bit of self-hatred that comes with not doing enough, not working hard enough, not being enough. Pleasure comes from success and anything that happens along the way is cheap and pointless. Sure you may be happy right now, but it’s not real, you’re cheating, work harder. These are things we’re told and so we internalize them, gutting little moments of happiness in a futile attempt for worth. “Pleasure vision’s got me wrapped around it’s finger,” McD sings. Of course, the same can be said for all of us, for better or worse.