Review: Interpersonal – The Long Bright Dark
In the day and age of never ending media data overload and instant gratification, it can be hard to focus and remember what you’re doing long enough…
In the day and age of never ending media data overload and instant gratification, it can be hard to focus and remember what you’re doing long enough to finish a three and a half minute song, much less a whole album by a single artist. Streaming playlists and Tik Tok algorithms are built for quick dopamine hits and not particularly conducive to emotional journeys, so building and sequencing a song cycle as one complete piece is becoming a bit of a lost art form. Thankfully, 2024 has been a great year for St Louis rock-centric bands bucking that trend by making impressive full length statements, from the rhythmic antirhythms of Midwestless by The Conformists and the mutant trash funk of True Crime On Acid Bridge by Subtropolis all the way to the world party psychbeat of SPIRIT WORLD by Children of the Rat Temple. Coming in towards the end of this banner year is the brilliant first LP The Long Bright Dark from self described “five piece loud rock band” Interpersonal.
Clocking in at just under 30 minutes, the strength of the record comes from Interpersonal’s seeming understanding of the modern listener’s lack of attention span by keeping everything moving and sonically unique from track to track. The spacious twin guitar work of Jordan Hagerman and Evan Murray chime and shudder in to set the scene like a lost Catherine Wheel track on album opener ‘Washington”, then crash into bassist Chris Jones’ vicious, Jesus Lizard-esque tones on the insistent ‘Become Death’ before easing into ‘Spiral’ (the best song Saves The Day and The Smoking Popes never wrote together) and then fading into downtempo interlude ‘Seconds, Minutes, Hours’ to reset the album. All that in less time than it takes to think of a metaphor to compare it to.
As the album travels it stays firmly in the “loud rock” category the band sets for itself, while the twists and turns it takes as it continues are held together by the huge sound and steady heartbeat of drummer Aaron Gipp and the sincerity of vocalist Lyle Schmitz, who always sounds heartfelt no matter what sound the band adopts. The skill of Interpersonal as arrangers comes through in how well every song is placed for maximum emotional effect and then flows into the next, right up to the end, with cello piece ‘Loss’ leading into epic album finale ‘The Long Bright Dark’ to bring it all to a satisfying close. The album goes a lot of different directions, but it always feels like it’s going somewhere as an artistic whole that pulls the listener with it. The fact that they succeed in making the The Long Bright Dark more than the sum of its’ parts makes it a beautiful oddity worth spending your time on in this quick switch era.
You don’t have to be a true detective if you’re looking to find The Long Bright Dark or support Interpersonal. Their music and merch is available for purchase on Bandcamp (https://interpersonalmusic.bandcamp.com/album/interpersonal) with physical copies of the new album on cassette tape coming soon.
