Fire Vinyl & CDs

Review: "Herd immunity" was certainly a phrase banded about during the pandemic, and we all know what it means, but what about if / when the phrase is taken figuratively? Cathy Lucas, Susumu Mukai, Elliott Arndt, Phil MFU and Valentina Magaletti make up the quintet that is Vanishing Twin, whose latest album The Age Of Immunology metaphorically attempts to answer this question. Today's tribulations, often of humanity's own doing, nonetheless require of us that we adapt, regardless of any long-term psychic damage this causes; whether one finds any sense of poetry in the literal reflection of this in the doling out of vaccines en masse remains to be decided by you, the listener. Psychopolitical ramblings aside, The Age Of Immunology follows up the band's yetmost experimental album Magic And Machines, and hears them emerge from the other side through dreamy post-punk cinematics ('KRK'), wahhing, whirling instrumental disco-kraut ('Cryonic Suspension May Save Your Life'), and boinging, 'Ashes To Ashes' style summer psych balladry ('Magician's Success'). All ironically work as temporary salves for the soul, reflecting a surreal fantasy space that almost certianly works to simultaneously reflect and deflect the era we find ourselves in now.