All things come and all things go
The early bird gets to take things slow
I can’t complain, I can’t complain
Took me years to get used to the rain
There’s something quietly beautiful about a father, son, and daughter deciding to make a record together: three people who share blood, history, arguments, inside jokes, and a deep affection for analogue synths, gathering in a room full of vintage gear in Augsburg and letting fate take its course. Social Station (Paul Todd, Jake Blake, and Natalie Simona) approach their latest offering, Dissolve, like caretakers of a shared language, one built from classic post-punk basslines, hypnotic guitar figures, and voices that carry both youth and memory.
Written and performed by Social Station, with mixing and mastering by Charlie Vela, Daniel Hallhuber, and Rob Early, Dissolve carries the careful touch of collaborators who understand both weight and space.
Dissolve opens with field recordings of protests and parades in Lima, Peru – real voices, real unrest – before sliding into Familysong. “It’s essentially a family jam session,” they explain, and you can hear it: Simona’s drum programming skitters and snaps while Todd’s guitar circles, Blake’s bass prowls with classic post-punk poise. It’s communal, slightly chaotic, and absolutely committed.
Good to Me, written in New York by Blake, kicks the door in. That bass is pure post-punk backbone, the guitars smeared in minor-key mood, the vocal a plea wrapped in pride, tenderness requested with teeth still showing. The influence of Interpol and Joy Division hovers, but this thing breathes on its own. It aches for care while bracing for betrayal. The Divide stretches its arms toward the sun and finds static in the sky. Lovely guitar flourishes glide over a steady, insistent bassline that could have slipped out of a Modest Mouse daydream before crashing a Horrors gig. It’s about weight: personal, planetary; and the thin line between endurance and exhaustion. The groove keeps you upright even as the lyrics stare down the undertow.
Pink Turns Blue swivels its hips. A livelier bassline, a hint of Duran Duran funk, sing-song delivery sliding into fixation. Roses rot in the brain. Memory loops like a scratched single. It’s hypnotic without hypnosis, sweet without sugar. Love decays in real time, and the band lets it. If You Want, engineered by Charlie Vela, is brisk, bright, and restless. Echoing guitar lines arc overhead with a whiff of Arcade Fire lift, while the rhythm section barrels forward. Conditional love becomes choreography; devotion becomes dare.
The title track, Dissolve, dives into Buffalo’s Continental Club after midnight. Funked-up bass in the tradition of A Certain Ratio anchors eerie guitar lines that hover like smoke above a dance floor. Romance and decay mingle. Identities blur. It’s intimate and a little dangerous. My Shadow finds Blake in reflective mode, melody clear and earnest, recalling mid-2000s bands like Arcade Fire, We Are Scientists, and Bishop Allen. Regret hangs in the air, but the song moves effortlessly. Alone by Design bangs out on Simona’s TR-8S, Blake’s walking bass strutting with a Pixies twitch by way of Bauhaus. Isolation becomes architecture, built brick by beat.
The Divide Part II reframes an earlier idea with newfound resolve. Perspective before panic…feet on the ground, eyes forward. Then The Exploding Dress closes the curtain. Minimal, mirrored, intimate…a nod to the Alan Parsons Project and the experimental work of Carl Stephenson. Simona leads, Todd answers. Identity pares down to essentials.
And finally, Dancing Plague crashes in as Social Station presents us with a hard-hitting remix of My Baltimore. The family hands the keys to the club and lets it burn bright. Social Station steps aside just long enough to let the beat take over, handing over the keys and watching the room ignite.
Listen to Dissolve below and order the album here.
Having shared stages with Lathe of Heaven, Dancing Plague, and Carrellee, Social Station sounds like a band fully at home in that lineage: communal, committed, and ready to keep building.
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