Pyrrhon – Exhaust Review

[Cover art by Caroline Harrison]

Unpredictability is a rather tricksy little hobbit of a thing in life. It’s awful when it comes to being in a bathroom, giving birth, or car maintenance. When it comes to music, though, it has the potential to be one of the greatest elements a band can lean into. Pyrrhon is an unpredictable band. While there are consistent aspects of their style, no two releases really match. The band leaned into unpredictability so much that album number five, Exhaust, was released with no prior announcement. The album simply appeared on Bandcamp and fans were given a nice surprise treat.

Not only was the album itself unexpected, but so to was the 38-minute runtime and shift in style that sees Exhaust as the band’s most streamlined album to date, including the fact that only one song (barely) surpasses the five-minute mark. Noise rock also carries a much stronger influence this time around. That’s not to say the band’s penchant for technical weirdness and dissonant aggression has disappeared, but there’s a lot more Unsane and KEN mode filtering into these 10 songs.

“Strange Pains” exemplifies that streamlined, noise-rock pivot best. It has a noisy, ugly guitar part but that’s balanced by a straightforward pit-puncher of a riff around the chorus. Oh yeah, the song follows a standard verse-chorus structure that actually has a hook in it and pulls very much from the Unsane playbook, but it does still manage to have a segment that sounds like the musical equivalent of having a psychotic breakdown. “Luck of the Draw” has that rocking riff style of a KEN mode song but throws in a beatdown riff late in the game before absolutely blasting off. The most unique song on Exhaust, however, is “Out of Gas.” It starts out with staggering bass and stuttering drums while the guitar lines mostly flit in and out across your ears in an alien fashion. Each instrument steadily escalates and builds adding tension to the proceeding, while Doug Moore’s mostly spoken-word ranting gets more and more unhinged; his deranged storytelling coming across a lot like Megan Osztrosits of fellow NYC noise merchants Couch Slut. That slow, steady build comes to a halt around the 3:30 mark when the bass goes nuts and a tortured scream acts as a harbinger of chaos for the song to completely fall apart.

Exhaust by Pyrrhon

Fret not, ye who seeks the “traditional” Pyrrhon madness, for there is plenty of it still available. “Stress Fracture” utilizes a weird bass line that ebbs and flows more so than providing a rhythmic battering. The same song eventually unleashes a claustrophobic, panicked guitar before it starts to sprint ahead and tumble down the stairs, creating an erratic finish. Everything in “Last Gasp” often feels stretched and slowed to create a fever dream experience. “Not Going to Mars” has a hideous, atonal Artificial Brain opening riff and Dylan DiLella pops off an absolutely demented guitar lead. “The Greatest City On Earth” pairs some of the most rollicking drum moments of the entire album with simpler patterns you can bob your head too. The song opens with a woozy, devolving guitar line but also launches a drunken beatdown that shifts into a maddening storm of randomly firing guitar notes. All along, Moore continues to show how volatile and manic his vocals can be as he bellows, squeals, shrieks, yelps, and wails so that he can be just as unpredictable and harsh as any other instrument in the mix.

The real perk of having a more streamlined album is that it provides a less challenging barrier to entry for those unfamiliar with the band. Wrap your head around this one and you may find yourself better armored for the back catalog. Ironically, Exhaust is a much less exhausting experience than Pyrrhon’s previous works. Album number five is easy to keep putting on over and over again as it marries the ugly with more memorable hooks and easily-digested shorter tracks. Exhaust was a surprise but how excellent it is surely isn’t.