One of my favorite COVID-era Bandcamp discoveries was Plague Skater, the lo-fi rock project led by New Jersey’s Will Schwester. Under the Plague Skater banner, Schwester released two albums that smashed through genres with DIY intensity, 2020’s self-titled debut and 2021’s Plague Skater II. Since then, the Plague Skater Bandcamp page has issued a wide range of experimental releases under various guises, but until today there hadn’t been another full-length Plague Skater record.
In a Bandcamp note, Schwester indicates that Plague Skater III will be the final release under this name. It’s a wild ride, blending heavy grunge power chords, shoegaze-flavored passages, unruly punk bursts, static-draped power-pop, AmRep-worthy noise-rock, and detours into everything from acoustic balladry to abstract electronics. Of two decades-old buzz bands in terms of vibe, it’s got a little Wavves, a little No Age. And you should know that the penultimate track is 17 minutes long and titled “Enter The Goo Vat.”
I had assumed this project was already finished, so the existence of a record this bracing is exciting. Schwester offers his own words here:
this record took way too long to make.
way too long of the same day, the same bullshit, all the same, all the same, over and over, again and again, and i got sick and tired of being sick and tired so i hatched a harebrained, convoluted, hours-and-money-burning plan to shatter that loop beyond repair.
eventually i crawled over the finish line, with barely a day left before i had to go on tour with another band. here is the result. even now, here i am, typing these liner notes when the record’s already been released. i was never one to respect a deadline.
this is the final plague skater album. i always meant for it to be that. i also meant for this record to be a lot different in a lot of ways. but you can only make what you can make… so here it is.
acoustic guitars, auto-tune, keyboards, violin.
sampling myself and re-sampling myself.
songs that are just verses and songs that are just bridges.
a blues song, a free jazz song, a house song hidden in another song, a seventeen minute long krautrock noise jam.
it’s all a joke. it’s all dead serious.
twenty tracks. one continuous, hour-long piece of music.
at last, my greatest failure and my goddamn masterpiece.
Listen below.
