The Garden. Photo by Ashley Clue.
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The Garden has always wanted to make you dance like your inner ear has been ripped out of your head. All sense of balance when it comes to rock's traditional moorings are discarded for something more glamourously sinister – the duo's approach to the genre seems to take philosophical cues from a version of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds that's hopelessly addicted to the internet. The duo's fifth studio album Horseshit On Route 66 is billed as their purest punk record, and while there aren't as many left-field garage experiments or pop tracks that sound like The Drums after a particularly rough possession, Route 66 is still unmistakeably The Garden.
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At a spartan 1:38, “Puerta de Limosina” bounces with a density that could stomp through steel-toed boots. Fletcher Shears unleashes a cascade of drums before his brother Wyatt starts the engine: deep, churning thwonks of bass notes, distorted into the realm of early Warsaw demos. The song's mission statement comes from the sample of a jolly raconteur proclaiming "What else could he be but a jester?" It's a love letter to the tricksters who operate on an absurd passion that can sometimes be mistaken for hollow irony. "Jester mindset, clear as Jell-O / Born a wild card, now just a fellow" Wyatt screams like a redeemed hellion, "It just felt so right / Putting on the hat / Buttoning up the top / Flying like a gnat." The journey to the "Limousine door" of the title makes the song feel like a cautionary tale for jesters everywhere: to not let the spoils of the world distract you from your own rare energy.