Written by Sac.Indie.Music Contributor: Dillon (Evilwatchme / Der Spazm)
This record starts with the exact feeling of walking to your best friend’s house on a Saturday morning—exuberant, marching, stupid in your joy—only to have it flipped on a dime when you spot a dead squirrel in the road. Suddenly the day isn’t so sunny anymore, and now you have to make a choice: stay and cry, or keep walking and try to have fun.
That emotional pivot—sharp, sad, stunning and somehow still moving forward—runs through Stable Vices like a vein. Themes of duality, mental illness, stagnation, and stubborn resilience are woven in plain but evocative language that makes it easy to paint yourself into the songs. Tracks like “Angled,” “Turner Third,” and “Keep Heaping” were maybe a little too easy to see myself in. Around that point, it hit me: Fitting done got me FUCKED UP.
Fans of Ovlov, Yo La Tengo, Wednesday, or Speedy Ortiz need to hear this record. The musicianship is wild—guitars that shift from slinky to menacing to Midwest-emo-adjacent within the space of 15 seconds. No beat or riff feels exactly familiar, like bumping into a friend you loved but haven’t seen in years and knowing you can’t get that time back.
Vocals land somewhere between a younger, infinitely more jaded Julian Casablancas and a dreamlike blend of Georgia Hubley and Carla Azar- detached but present, like someone singing or screaming their secrets into a tape recorder abyss.
The bass especially shines on “Barreling Thru,” anchoring the song with a riff that somehow holds all the other instruments in orbit. This band switches time signatures, textures, vibesss (yes, with extra S’s) with such ease it’s scary—but maybe that’s the point. That’s the reality these songs live in: you’re always fighting—with yourself, with someone else, with a dead squirrel. But you have to barrel through anyway.
Sac.Indie.Music 