The music has strength throughout, with creepy and intense riffs droning and building into one another.

It’s been three years since Flat Worms first graced my ears. Their self-titled debut was an album that I first had some difficulty getting into, but after a few listens it’s hard not to fall in love with the infectious guitar riffs and monotonous mumble vocals of Will Ivy. With this in mind I was curious to hear how their new album would sound. Antarctica sees Flat Worms in a more serious light then their first record, with production finished in six days at Steve Albini’s Electric Audio studio. Where their debut sounded fun, this sounds angry, channeling a blizzard of fury throughout the first track “The Aughts” with riffs reminiscent of artists like Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. The song progresses into screeching guitar and FX, which play an important role tonally, creating an intense atmosphere that spans the whole record moving forward. 

“Plaster Casts” blasts in with frantic bass and busy drums. The rhythmic guitar twitching grows more and more frenzied as the song progresses before commencing a slow fade that brings a deflated quality to the accompanying riffs. Lyrically, Flat Worms conjure images of “Royalty and privilege”, only for the lead vocals to cut through with a shout of “I gotta get out”, a juxtaposition which helps establish a trend in the album’s lyricism towards some fairly countercultural themes. This becomes only more apparent as the album progresses into “Market Forces” and you start to notice more of the underlying themes on the record. Flat Worms clearly want change, expressing the despair of corporate interests acting contrary to any sort of public good. Keeping with this theme, lyrics such as “Why are you sitting all alone?” seem to ask why the listener is doing nothing. 

The titular track “Antarctica” has a sound reminiscent of an early Strokes track. The angry and vicious speed of the first track has dissipated by this stage, leaving a fresh, more sinister tone at times. “Via” is a track that brings some much-needed energy back into the album. It’s has psychedelic undertones at the start that Flat Worms would do well exploring further. Fuzzy bass tones and trippy guitar really make this song stand out as one of the better tracks on the record. Though the instruments sound fantastic, Flat Worms’ vocalist however seems to have lost the energy at this stage of the record, rarely delivering a vocal performance strong enough to support the explosive instruments that surround him. 

“The Mine” starts out quite moody, almost grungy, but feels quite repetitive and weak compared to the tracks that preceded it. It’s only when the verse-chorus structure ends and the instruments take over that this track starts to feel energetic and enjoyable, unburdened by these otherwise underwhelming elements. The opening of “Ripper One” feels like an anxiety attack. Being one of the shortest tracks on this record there is a certain immediacy to this track that really emphasises the tone of the record. “Condo Colony” builds back that energy and Ivy’s delivery is a lot stronger on this track. You can’t help but feel like singing along in the chorus when he chants “Condo Colony”. And with the presence of those wailing guitars, the song finds a welcome place as a breath of fresh air in the track list.

“Signals” is a small instrumental interlude that seems unnecessary, either as a misplaced moment of calm or an otherwise insubstantial moment of padding. What it moves into, however, is a truly great track. “Wet Concrete” fills an important niche in the album’s runtime, with Ivy practically addressing the listener directly, with lyrics that confront in a welcome way that gives the track a meaningful and engrossing depth to it, especially compared to some of the more underwhelming moments on the record. The penultimate track, “Terms of Visitation” is probably the heaviest track on the album since the opener, bringing with it a real sense of despair throughout the intro until it bursts into a catchy melodic riffing before growing increasingly frantic with angular guitar crunches. Lyrically, the song is highly appropriate for the current global circumstances; “Fit for prisoners, / Fit for lovers, just the same”, likening both ideas of visitation in a track that finds surprising thematic weight given the pandemic unfolding around us. 

Flat Worms seem as though they’re trying to say something in this album, though only infrequently do they convey this in a serious and committed capacity. Overall I find the greatest fault with the album lies with the vocals; where so much of instrumentation brings a fun and at times really engaging sound to the album, the vocals often sag behind with monotonous delivery that barely complements the music surrounding it. The music has strength throughout, with creepy and intense riffs droning and building into one another, and perhaps the vocals are part of the Flat Worms appeal, opening them to the niche of a more chilled variation on recognisable sounds like those of Idles or Viagra Boys. 

Comparisons with their last album reveal Ivy’s vocals seem to have grown whinier. This album, just like their last, would likely see improvement with a more interesting vocal component, though again, the monotony at play is just as likely an intentional move as it is a perceivable flaw, and perhaps that intentionality in the laid-back vibe of Ivy’s sound is what appeals to listeners. The grungy moments on the album are reminiscent of Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins, but rarely does Ivy manage to deliver a performance anywhere near as powerful or striking as Cobain or Corgan. With the album kicking off to such a brilliant start only for that energy to dissipate, it seems a real shame that it couldn’t retain such a strong sense of identity throughout. With a few weak tracks on this record and at times dull vocals, one could easily overlook the album, but the standout tracks Flat Worms do have to offer make the album worth exploring, even if some songs are undoubtedly more skippable than others. Instrumentation remains one of the band’s greatest strengths, but Ivy’s apathetic vocals undermine a noticeable attempt at angry countercultural thematic substance.