Sadness & Complete Disappointment - ‘GBH’ review
Sadness & Complete Disappointment by Felix Bartlett
If there’s a more contextually appropriate band name to debut in the 2020’s than Sadness & Complete Disappointment (S.A.C.D), we haven’t found it yet. The band produced their debut EP FUN back in 2021 while the iron was hot. We now have all three singles creating the sophomore effort GBH. Here’s what we thought:
The opening track, 'Grip' has an appropriate title, for a few reasons. First off, the track builds in a very suspenseful way. It's your own interpretation whether Meg Mehta's guitar in the latter half is the track either releasing its grip or pulling you under. Second to that, it feels like something emotional is stuck with this track. It has both a wistful aura with hazy vocals and an air of menace about what caused these emotions. It's both hurt and ambivalent, if 'Young and Beautiful' by Lana Del Rey meets Nirvana's 'Something in The Way'. That's a very deliberate comparison, as 'Grip' dropped with an accompanying music video. Said music video echoes the same sort of cinematics as a Del Rey video, but here they're on acid.
'Barb' opens with an unexpected and badass drumbeat from Esmee Baker. Meg Mehta spoke about 'Grip' that it was the "ol’ adage of there being two wolves inside of everyone". The wolf inside them that wrote 'Barb' is authoritative and has soul. That same wolf also redelivers on the promise of something "Balls-out riffy" here as well. There's a small world inside 'Barb' and a brilliant bassline from Kira Snow. Where the previous track had some ambiguity, this has a powerful old western vibe, blunt and no mess. GBH promised "intricate soundscapes layering dark, grooving bass riffs, melancholy-soaked guitar, hazy soprano vocals, and an overall feeling of heavy", this delivers on that.
'High' ends the EP on a high note. Lead vocalist Esmee Baker said in the lead up that "our main thing is sadness - but with a glimmer of hope". That is at its most obvious with 'High'. Again, a completely different track that shows different merits in the S.A.C.D arsenal. This offers the most lyrical intrigue of the EP, and performance wise borders on the operatic. It covers that basis in story of the track itself, the range with which vocals are performed, and who's doing them. 'High' is the best example of these tropes, built around instrumental peaks and troughs. It feels like At various points during GBH, vocals change in a way that reflects a story beat, it's subtle, and we love it. The lulls in instruments are when they tell you the story, the peaks are when you feel it. The longest track by far, this feels like it accomplishes the most, with an apocalyptic atmosphere while it does it.
With a name like Sadness & Complete Disappointment, there’s a number of puns critics can make. The reality is they are nothing close to a disappointment with GBH. To call back to a previous quote from Esmee Barker, they said "our main thing is sadness - but with a glimmer of hope". GBH doesn’t exactly feel like sadness, it feels like fury, and it's very good.
GBH from Sadness & Complete Disappointment is out now and available on all good streaming platforms.