Album Review: Another Beautiful Day in the Apocalypse by Billy Bates
Album Review: Billy Bates –Another Beautiful Day in the Apocalypse
June 15, 2021
Elise Mills
This is the EP for all you heathens out there: ecstatic, hedonistic release is inevitable!
Released May 19, 2021
Hands down one of the coolest labels in the Bay, Squirrels on Film is at it again with squirrel resident Billy Bates’ first solo EP: “Another Beautiful Day in the Apocalypse.” This extended play is the drive en route to a night you just know you won’t forget. Prepare yourself to mentally teleport to “main character mode,” and just like the beginning of an epic, time-sucking video game, that dopamine will be flowing in no time.
The EP is full of that dark danceable synthful noise, with one perfectly lush, gothic (if not goth) jam after another. Squelchy EBM notes, metallic, otherworldly tonalities that add the spook to any season, and a gritty darkwave energy I can't get enough of that makes me miss Berlin a little too much. Sometimes punk mixed with disco, other times darkwave mixed with acid guitars, the EP still drips with the sophistication of dark velvet and red wine. To my ear, “Another Beautiful Day in the Apocalypse” has a goth sensibility, convincingly bridging the illusive “goth music” category with the likes of EBM, industrial, Belgian New Beat, and darkwave, despite what some goths might have to say about it (fight me). Semantics aside, it’s also just the perfect soundtrack for a bop in place: maybe you’re driving aimlessly in the car at night carefully towing the line between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil, or you’re sweating profusely on a packed dance floor right up next to the big speakers. Take your pick. For all you heathens out there, ecstatic, hedonistic release is inevitable.
After a pleasantly noisy rendezvous in the first track, “Sunsets of Doom” puts me into a light trance. The undertones of “I Don’t Want To Go Outside” at 2:38 remind me why I love this kind of music; I’ll just never get sick of the way haunting, dark electronics tear my soul apart. It’s safe to say the EP is truly unhinged in the best of ways and I am here! For! It!
Favorite tracks: “Another Day in the Apocalypse” and “I Don’t Want To Go Outside.”
Elise is a recovering 2020 graduate, sound artist, and noise lover born and raised in San Francisco. Especially interested in the metaphysicality of sound, she spends her time attempting to prototype DIY synthesizers and experimenting with (and lamenting!) the whims of magnetic tape, among other experimental electronic projects.