Giant Waste of Man and the indie rock emotional interplay and pivots of "Jumpsuit"

 

photo by Robin Laananen   "The blue and silver are gone, it’s just starting / The blue and silver, it meant something..."

The first line of Los Angeles based Giant Waste of Man's illuminating "Jumpsuit" is the thought provoking "a million reasons to not do something" and it hits me in the face like an ice cold splash of water every time I hear it. As a person who sometimes has waited nearly a decade to do something that I was afraid to do for fear of failing it feels so relatable. In fact, if I think about those times hard enough, I still feel like I can't breathe. Luckily, that feeling does not last long because GWOM's musical complexities drenched with emotion sweeps me away. I love all the interplay, crunchy sustains of sound against folk-esque indie rock open picking, drums that feel line gears in motion, double time bass punches, lovely vocal harmonies cut with shards of pain. There are eruptions of sound and breakaway moments too. This type of indie rock, to me, a blending of 90's college radio sounds, that inherent indefinable sounds that make me think of an amalgam of Smashing Pumpkins, Built To Spill, Sonic Youth, Tree People and R.E.M feels nostalgic but incredible fresh too, free of the all too frequent indie tropes of the day.

It is no wonder that "Jumpsuit" feels so beautifully torn. It is informed by hard times / pivots by situations beyond the band's control. They share: 

 

"Thematically, a lot of the GWOM songs from this upcoming record are vignettes of memory. Some inspired by memories surrounding life-altering events and some from memories that were just strangely unforgettable. Lyrically, 'Jumpsuit' looks down the barrel of the recent years, dealing with the doom-scrolling consciousness of living through this pandemic. From losing our jobs (3/4 of the band worked at bars) to losing our local venues, 'Jumpsuit' tries to make sense of a world that keeps getting scarier. With 2022 shaping up the way it is, the sentiments of this song are sadly as relevant as ever."

Giant Waste of Man (GWOM) features two vocalists and multi-instrumentalists, Ben Heywood and Cam Dmytryk and "Jumpsuit" is the follow up to "Swim", their first hard release since their well received 2019 debut album "The Politics of Lonely" (I included the review link to "Swim" down below). The band is comprised of (former and current) members of acts such as Black Heart Procession, Sun Drug, Summer Darling, Kissing Cousins, Facial, and QunQ.

-Robb Donker Curtius

Chain Letter · Jumpsuit by Giant Waste of Man

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://giantwasteofman.bandcamp.com/music

https://www.americanpancake.com/2022/02/giant-waste-of-man-and-hard-edged.html

https://twitter.com/giantwasteofman

https://www.instagram.com/giantwasteofman/

https://soundcloud.com/giantwasteofman

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0so7V9DStA5VCWSYVKcm5q

For fans of Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene, and the sound of the Pacific Northwest in the ‘90s, the Los Angeles-based GWOM is made up of rock veterans. Collectively comprised of (former and current) members of acts such as Black Heart Procession, Sun Drug, Summer Darling, Kissing Cousins, Facial, and QunQ, the GWOM bandmates have spent time touring the U.S. & Europe and have opened for acts such as Billy Corgan, Pedro the Lion, Young the Giant, Dead Sara & Explosions in the Sky.

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 Indie Rock, Emo, Alternative Rock, Giant Waste of Man, Chain Letter Collective, "Jumpsuit", Los Angeles, alt rock tones, guitar rock, 90's college radio, emotional waves,