THE PRESENT MOMENT - ENOUGH TO DRIVE YOU MAD VInyl LP
A 5th LP is a benchmark in any artist's career, let alone an independent act like THE PRESENT MOMENT, and Enough To Drive You Mad is no exception. Arriving in 2022, the expansive ETDYM is the culmination of over a decade of releases that have powered TPM through numerous accolades and European tours, and is the product of a locked-down year's worth of in-studio writing, recording and production. At times channeling Portishead, David Bowie, Trent Reznor, Pink Floyd, The Cure and Depeche Mode, ETDYM is the band's most ambitious release to date. Enough To Drive You Mad was recorded in Los Angeles during the 2020-2021 lockdown against the backdrop of Covid-19's seemingly unstoppable fear and omnipresent suffering. Dark, blunt, and beautiful ETDYM dives unflinching into the horror of watching a world flail in helplessness through waves of sickness, misinformation, anger, hypocrisy and greed, all the while clinging desperately to the concept of empathy and the endurance of the human spirit.
Enough To Drive You Mad marks the second recorded collaboration between project founder Milton Scott and award-winning composer and singer/songwriter/producer Jason "Halogen" Dunn. Milton and Dunn began working together with the B-side of 2019's Split album, which expanded THE PRESENT MOMENT'S minimalist synth sound with the addition of live instruments and shifting arrangements, a melding of worlds that continues to allow Milton's haunting voice and gift for lyrical imagery to paint new characters and scenes over a lush landscape of shimmering guitars, driving bass lines, and pummeling drum loops - in concert with the hypnotic arpeggio lines and synth soundscapes that the band's fans hold dear.
Highlight tracks include the opening, industrial assault of "White Picket Dreams", written during the 2020 police brutality protests, the pulsating and hypnotic album centerpiece "Dharma", the infectious, 80's electro-goth banger "Nothing To Prove", the nightmare dreamscape of "America, How Are You?" in which the USA finally seeks out a therapist, and the title track: a meditative aural clearing in the forest of confusion and dread that is the totality of Enough To Drive You Mad.