Upstairs are an indie rock band whose politically motivated songwriting forms a backbone around which they can shapeshift and experiment. Starting life in a Cincinnati basement, the act underwent several moves and name changes before settling in Chicago and deciding to stick with the name Upstairs. In 2018 they released their debut EP, Our Ass is in the Jackpot Now, introducing what we described at the time as their “verbose brand of indie rock that can’t quite decide between cynical detachment and sincere shouting.”
Later, Upstairs teamed up in studio with Matt Ciani to record the following three years worth of music. We saw some of the results earlier this year, in the form of sophomore EP, Town All Over Life, five songs that the band describe as “ominous and triumphant, cryptic and tender.” With its playful and breathless style and switched-on charm, the release lived up to what we had previously labelled the Upstairs spirit: “Frantically wordy sermon[s] that veer between hip sing-speak and momentous outpouring, all the while weaving a lyrical monologue[s] that [are] as urgent as [they are] amusing.”
But that’s not all. Later this year Upstairs will release their debut album, I Could Die Whenever, a collection of recordings from the same sessions that embrace this spirit and develop it to reach newfound levels of invention. Lead single ‘Spider City’ gives a glimpse of what to expect, and it is everything you’d hope for. Racing into life to be as busy and fleet-footed as any downtown street, the single is part stream of consciousness, part city-made-song—a non-stop tumble of dreams and confessions both wryly black and unashamedly gleaming. A force that pulls you in and wears you down into a fine sand, all ready for someone else to walk over, again and again and again.
I wanna work at your smoke shop
I wanna get taken out by the bomb
I wanna rent a condo in an abandoned part of South Florida and sleep with the radio on
I want to watch The Wire
alone on my bed, high as a kite
burning tires
on big white yacht With Cocaine Mitch and the boys
Artwork by Daham Marapane