Fun guys from Yuggoth

Like the color out of the space that gives them their name, Pinkish Black defy categorization, occupying a weird netherworld between genres that leaves the listener feeling vaguely uneasy. Is it doom? Is it synth-prog? Psychedelic? Experimental? Hell if I know, but it works.

The Fort Worth-based duo named their fourth album Concept Unification, and the only results Google offers about the phrase refers to a process in which ShowBiz Pizza Place’s Rock-afire Explosion band animatronics were transformed into the Chuck E. Cheese equivalents after the chains merged. It’s strangely unsettling to watch the robots stripped of clothes and fur and faces and replaced with their Munch’s Make Believe Band counterparts. That’s kind of the experience that Pinkish Black seem to be going for. Not just the blending of styles, but the process of blending the styles. The point where the metallic doom meets the synthesized gloom. The title track feels as if Bauhaus got trapped in a fogbank, “Petit Mal” the favorite music of the computer from Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, “Next Solution” a 12-minute race through John Carpenter’s worst nightmares.

The miasmal vibe they spread may not be for everyone, but in a world filled with shitty knockoff robot bands, it’s unique to watch the process of deconstruction. It can be a bummer to listen to (nothing on here could be considered remotely uplifting), but there are no other colors in the rainbow quite like this one.

Review taken from the August 2019 issue of Decibel, which is available here.