Bog Standard by Like Weeds

To Like Weeds on their new album Bog Standard, countries function like machines in which every piece of land, every segment of infrastructure, and every citizen has a function. However, in post-Thatcher England, this machinery frequently skips over resources or completely breaks down in some sections, causing the government to systematically and dependably fail to deliver on its duties and promises to certain people and communities. Decades of divestment from both major political parties and an unambiguously botched exit from the European Union have silenced the hum of the machine to a growing number of ears, relegating the rhythmic hammering and soothing hiss of industrial productivity to a distant memory. The album portrays all this by giving us a sonic tour of the country, showing us places where echoes of the old rhythms still appear under wretched distortion and reverb as well as vast landscapes where only the faintest rumblings of a functioning state still appear. Panicked, the people of this dysfunctional frontier stare each other down, awaiting the day when all falls silent for the last time. If this machine dies out, then maybe there just shouldn’t be a machine at all.