‘Endure’ will take you to memorable corners. Exploring big emotions and revolutionary desires, what has been created is an album of the times.

Created in the confines musicians of today found themselves in during 2020, ‘Endure’ is a result of unrestricted, sonic exploration, born out of the stripped ability to perform live during the pandemic. However broad the sonic landscape of prior albums such as 2018’s ’Spiraling’ and 2020’s ‘The Passion Of’ were , this album welcomes another stretch of expansion yet again, to aid the perfectly calculated chaos that Special Interest are.

The opening track ‘Cherry Blue Intention’ takes us back to the centre of a dancefloor; a place missed by many in recent years. Filled with images and situations so familiar to those beautifully messy nights out, from the fleeting temporal love, to the whatever attitude towards anything, to the freedom that comes with dancing. A hail to the dancers who want to forget everything and lose themselves in the music, this urgency to move and engage is a vocal point within the first four tracks of the album. Take ‘Midnight Legend’, one of the lead singles of the album that comes as a hyping up of a friend who has the attention of everyone on this night out, with Mykki Blanco’s understated and seamless feature re iterating the cool, attractiveness this friend is emanating.

Special Interest’s sound is decorated with multiple genres, with innocent sounding synths that feel borrowed from an eighties horror film score and the spooky atmospherics similar to Memphis Rap. Uneasy discordant melodies come together like puzzle pieces from separate puzzles that somehow fit and create a surreal image. The blended genres that make this band so distinctive, between no wave and disco, punk to house, highlights the fact there are no rules within the creation behind this unique sound other than ‘take anything and everything, then make it your own’.

There’s a persistent sentiment that bleeds through the lyrics of the album, this sentiment of getting through it, day or night. ‘Short staffed, sleep deprive’ the lead singer Alli Logout sings on the track ‘Foul’,  admitting to the hardships of the everyday with the support of the rich textures from the distorted noise fest created by Ruth Mascelli on synths. Maria Elena’s unpredictable guitar performance is one to be made aware and paid attention to. Not only on this track but throughout the album, she creates a sense of unease, ranging from gliding ambient chords to shrieking, punk sounds. This painting of the capitalist hell scape of working within a hospitality job brings back a familial dread as you are taken to that awful 9-5 with almost more awful wages. Between the waning chords and a steadfast drum beat with Logout delivering a commanding vocal performance that ranges from screaming to sultry whispers with her  sergeant mannerisms making her the group leader of a night out, one is enticed to follow her orders. ‘So when I say build I mean dream because that’s all we got promised!’. These big contemplations come through this album, acknowledging the state of the world and questioning how we are meant to keep moving forward. The contrast of the optimistic beat and the bleak realism of the lyrics creates a conflict that remains tireless throughout the album. With Logout’s lyrics baring an intense, confessional, vulnerability lifted by the minimal yet effective bass line deployed by  Nathan Cassiani, we are no longer in the midst of the dance floor but the realms of early morning starts and dreaded shifts.

The summer of 2020 and the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement is brought forward in the track ‘Concerning Peace’. ‘Violence/The only way for me/The only language I was ever taught to speak’. A last resort in a world where the voices of Black women, despite all the changes and representation in the media, can still go unheard. Screaming for change in a broken system, this track captures a historical moment in such a realistic way, a moment with such hope and yet despair. Referencing Frantz Fanon’s ‘A Wretched Face’ emphasizes how much has changed. With the book being written in 1961 before this decade would see the rise of the Civil Rights movement, it feels cyclical in a way that where we have witnessed change and more support for racial equality, we are also met with the same racism that holds our society back and persists through the systems bleak admission creates a conflict that holds resonance for those of us watching our futures being fumbled by the money hungry people in high places.  

‘Endure’ will take you to memorable corners. Exploring big emotions and revolutionary desires, what has been created is an album of the times. You can find yourself within the fun carefree group of dancers or the overwhelming presence of personal anxieties. Whatever emotion, there is a place for you here. It feels grandiose and hyperbolic calling albums important, as if they can spur on change within the world. But it does feel right to call this album important and maybe more precisely, urgent. What this album tackles will resonate with people from all different walks of life. It’s a modern choreography of the day to day with our suppressed emotions about how things aren’t getting better and this band can hear you, feel it themselves too. When political leaders are saying that climate change aren’t real,  Special Interest are here to tell you that the world is on fire. And by reaffirming this dread and having us dance along to our doubts, they have created something exceptional; an album that will have the most conservative of people twitching.