MSPAINT have been on a nonstop tear since blowing up in the scene with a sound that’s not exclusively hardcore or punk or synth-pop, but a high voltage synergy of all of them — with zero guitars to be found in it, albeit — with their 2023 standout debut album, Post-American. Times like these necessitate everything that the Hattiesburg crew burled up in the bars of their charismatic frontman Deedee and go hard in offering a recharge to our batteries to survive these dark, collapsing stage capitalism times. Despite touring nonstop since then, they’ve managed to record a solid exploratory transitional statement with even more juice to keep the energy moving forward with the five-track extended play, No Separation.

To do this, the four-piece went into the studio with Julian Cashwan Pratt and Harlan Steed of fellow punk experimentalists Show Me the Body who bring out a higher definition, flashier effect from MSPAINT’s pixelated aggression. The creative collaboration clearly pushed them to lock into a splatter of industrial electronic rock and pop-minded amperages where anthems like its skyscraper of a title track and “Angel” are built to booster a will to live in the face of oppressive political barriers that only want to jilt your reality, while surrounding parts “Drift” and “Surveillance” weaponize cryptic synth waves in varying intensities to absorb the paranoia and nihilistic impulses a growing police state is breeding fear with. “If this world is falling apart / Why don’t we just fall together?”, Deedee asks on the glittering “Wildfire”. This isn’t MSPAINT waving a white flag by any means. Quite the opposite, as they’re applying the laws of energy and physics to their sound to take on any and all negative forces, with more power behind theirs.

Highlights: “Wildfire”, “No Separation”, “Angel”

MSPAINT’s No Separation is available now on Convulse Records.

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