About this Album
Preoccupations is the second album by the Canadian band, released on September 16, 2016 through Flemish Eye in Canada and Jagjaguwar in the United States.[1] It was the first record issued under the new name, adopted after the group stopped calling itself Viet Cong.[1]
It was recorded across six studios, with Matt Flegel, Scott Munro and Graham Walsh producing and Walsh recording and mixing.[1] Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and New Order are cited as influences.[1] Reviews were generally favorable, with a Metacritic score of 79 from 21 reviews and a 7.9 from Pitchfork.[1]
Its centerpiece is the eleven-minute "Memory", the fourth track. Critics described the record as bleak and anxious, concerned with confusion and depression.[2]
The record was made during an upheaval. Scott Munro has said that he and Matt Flegel both saw long-term relationships end in the preceding year, and that the band lived transiently with their belongings in storage.[4] The five songs titled with a single word, among them the opener "Anxiety", were a conscious attempt to capture each track's subject in one word.[4] Flegel has described the new name as a clean slate, and Munro as a kind of rebirth.[3]
Songs
References
- Preoccupations (2016 album) on Wikipedia — Release date, labels, recording studios, producers, track length, single date, influences and critical reception.
- Preoccupations album review (DIY) — Four-star review placing Memory at the album's midpoint and discussing the record's anxiety themes.
- Flood — Interview on rebirth and writing as release.
- The Skinny — Munro on breakups, transient living and one-word titles.