In many ways, the music of Writhing Squares could have only originated in Philadelphia; the city itself a microcosm of creatives, go-getters, freaks & weirdos that have coalesced into a supportive & boundary-pushing crew. Former Purling Hiss bassist Daniel Provenzano & Ecstatic Vision sax-player & vocalist Kevin Nickles first musical missive was shot forth in 2013 (the self-released CDR Live In Space) & various singles, split releases, albums (and a double-album) later we arrive at the duos fourth full-length Mythology, their third for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records.

Mythology picks up the pieces left shattered by their previous double-album Chart For The Solution and reconnects the broken shards together like Kintsugi, the ancient Japanese technique for mending broken ceramics, infusing the breaks with powdered gold. The Squares themselves are like mad-scientists, taking the ruined detritus populating junk shops & surplus outlets & constructing their own sonic laboratories in their New Jersey basements to record, mix & tweak Mythologys eight tracks. Their new location allowed the band to regroup, reassess & reconstruct their sound from the ground up, shearing away the cosmic excess of 2021s Chart For The Solution to a sharper point.

Tracks like Barbarians & LEM are classic Squares; brutal, aggressive, unwavering assault of Motorhead/Stooges-inflected sci-fi punk scree, while others like Chromatophages mutant funk & Cerberuss techno-slink owe a serious debt to electric-era Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock & show that the group has more to offer than bludgeoning you with sonic force. Provenzanos bass & electronics are like a tank rolling across the terrain – a gnarly construct of Hawkwind-ian headiness & Vincebus Eruptums snarl – uncaring of what gets in the way. Nickles brass vacillates between Stooges-influenced sleaze, jazzy no-wave stabs, & cacophonous sonic storms, strafing the listener into oblivion. The duo are joined on Mythology by drummer John Schoemaker – who contributed drums to Chart For The Solutions epic closing track Epilogue – whose percussive pulse adds an organic swing to The Squares sonics, particularly on album closer The Damned Things cosmic strut.

Mythology tackles a multitude of themes, from fantastical tales of hellhound Cerberus or the comic-inspired Eternity to Chromatophages colorful/evil yarn about animals that eat colors (or a Magic: The Gathering card) to the true-life influenced Acid Rain that deals with the uncertainty of consuming drinking water after a chemical spill in the Delaware River. Elsewhere, Ferrell is an homage to the late, great Ferrell Pharaoh Sanders & The Damned Thing by a short horror story penned by Ambrose Bierce about an animal whose coloring is invisible to the naked eye. Writhing Squares are in a transitional phase, mapping out a new sonic mythology for themselves after crossing the event horizon into unknown space. Mythology is streaming on most DSPs & released on black vinyl & limited fluorescent green vinyl (while supplies last) on April 26th, 2024