TThe Philadelphia/Portugal-based trio’s fifth album kicks off with the aptly named “The Disruption.” The band is known for its disorienting atmospheres, alternating between different genres and moods within its songs. The album alternates between wailing guitars, lo-fi breakbeats, brooding electro-indie, pumped rap-rock, and gritty screams.
With their 2021 album, Entertainment, Death, the band perfected music that gets its momentum from hairpin curves. It was a thrilling, beautiful exercise in hyperrock (a weird, glitchy, eerie style of guitar music that reflects the absurd tonal shifts of social media timelines). They pick up where they left off in the beginning: “The Cut Depicts the Cut” confoundingly splices thumping bass and trembling beats with sweetly spaced vocals, aggro rap, and distorted slacker indie. The gospel intro of highlight “Let the Virgin Drive” heralds an inventive, dissonant combination of robotically autotuned sweet vocals and country-inflected shoegaze, before giving way to a blurred spoken-word soundscape and more screams. There are hints of actual crime horror, and “Let the Virgin Drive” alludes to a serial killer. “Something’s Ending” begins with a menacing whisper: “They pulled another one out of the river.” Another track is titled “Found a Body.”
But overall the album isn’t as choppy and harsh as its predecessor, and some of the later tracks are little more than lightly distorted indie rock. The band’s creative leaps have more time to shine, but even on this restrained album, Spirit of the Beehive continues to write unexpected stories.
