The members of New York‘s Modern Diet supposedly met outside of OMG Pizza in the middle of the night, bonding over femininity and food intolerances seemingly with enough chemistry to group together and form a band. A number of releases set out their colourful indie pop/alt rock style, most recently the EP Post Grad this spring. Though the three-song album was merely a taster for a brand new full-length, The State of Things, released recently on Paper Moon Records.
Taking over five years to write, The State of Things is a autobiographical album with considerable depth, though one crafted carefully to have a clear line through line. A record in the classic sense, intended to be played front to back. This cohesiveness harks back to the recording process, a rapid two weeks relative to the album’s lengthy gestation period, encouraging a sense of immediacy and flow which will carry through to the live performance. “Almost everything on the record is recorded with the same microphone and the same instruments and I think that that, along with the fact that everything was tracked over the course of two weeks, gives the whole thing a real sense of consistency,” the band explain. “I hope people will listen to the record from top to bottom and I’m excited to perform it that way this fall.”
Opener ‘Smaller’ sees Margaux join for a reflection on a past relationship, distance giving perspective if not complete relief from pain, while the title track continues this picture of a slow aftermath where nostalgic fondness and regret blur. “I’m working as an engineer / Making just enough to clear / Fancy coffee and my Brooklyn room,” sings lead Jake Cheriff. “I heard you’re doing better too / In love and going back to school / Isn’t growing up the strangest thing.”
The mood is ever-present across the record, the vocals vacillating between conviction and doubt as thoughts inevitably turn to the past. ‘Pretending’ blurs Shauf-esque sincerity with a sterner edge as it assesses previous moments, while ‘Tabletops’ struggles to move onto something else. ‘Make Sense’ hopes the past might return, ‘Older’ imagines a more workable future, while ‘The Sink’ offers the small repeating cycles within this headspace, realising you might just always be the person you are, nothing more, nothing less.
It’s Friday night again
Trying to set an intention
The door is closing in
The boys are drunk with pretension
One foot at a time
Closer ’25’ takes stock of the whole situation, coming to grips with the passing of time by examining our habit to fixate upon that very thing. Attempting to overcome the sense that more should have happened in the previous years, more should have been achieved, and reconnecting with life on its own terms day-to-day. “I’ve been preoccupied / These days with the shape of time,” Cheriff sings, “When all of yours was mine / And what does that make me?”
The State of Things is out now via Paper Moon Records and you can get it now from the Modern Diet Bandcamp page.
Artwork by Kyle Sims