Last Updated on September 27, 2023, 11:01 AM | Published: September 27, 2023
There are two major specters floating above, around, and through “Satellite Aphrodite,” the brand-new debut full-length effort from OKC’s Mad Honey.
The first is failure.
The songs here each seethe with the regrets and aftershocks of pouring your efforts into something (or someone) only for it all to fall apart, leaving you with more questions than answers and more disappointment than hope.
The second is also Failure, but this time with a capital “F.”
Perhaps the most criminally underrated and under-heard band of the 90s, Failure practically drew the blueprints for the kind of shoegaze-infused grunge that Mad Honey are building throughout “Satellite Aphrodite.”
It’s a delicate needle to thread to weave the detached pathos of modernized dream-pop into the cranked, fuzzy, heart-on-the-sleeve confessionals of grunge and harder rock, but Mad Honey nail the combination by committing to the earnestness and a greater focus on dynamics than ever before.
Last month, I spotlighted single “Concentration” for adding a rougher, urgent edge to Mad Honey’s usually densely dreamy indie sound, and while that edge does continually show up across the record, it’s actually the space and the breathing room built into so many of the songs here that elevate it.
Opener “Tuff’s Last Stand” unfurls gently from an acoustic strum rather than bursting through textured feedback like “Odds” from last year’s “Promo ’22.” After a long string of short EPs and singles, this full-length effort doesn’t need to crash the gates for attention.
Mad Honey have already announced themselves loudly and fully in the past. Now they can take their time building the little sonic snow globes of each track here, raising carefully, shaking violently, and then letting things slowly settle down.
Through it all, the constants remain. None more so than Tiff Sutcliffe’s reverb-drenched vocal protagonist.
Past releases and live outings have seen vocal duties carried together by Sutcliffe and bassist Lennon Bramlett, but throughout “Satellite Aphrodite,” it’s Sutcliffe’s voice that’s the star of the show.
It’s difficult to say if that’s down to a specific conceptual or aesthetic choice, but it would be easy to believe that this is a concept record of sorts. It definitely seems like it’s tracking through a breakup or a particularly acrimonious split of some kind, opening with confusion and self-loathing and building through the open-eyed anger of “Concentration.”
When you reach the closing title track, with its declaration that “we’re at the end of something,” it certainly feels like a weight’s been lifted after finally getting it all off your chest.
Though that anger and intensity rolls out and develops slowly in the lyrics and the gradually growing vocal sneer, it’s another of the album’s constants that keeps dropping hints of the stewing, cathartic animosity throughout.
And it’s also where that Failure comparison comes back into play.
There’s a sharp, fuzzy, insistent lead guitar that rears its head on song after song, never becoming tired or unwelcome, but always introducing unexpected, often challenging new melodic lines, sometimes veering dangerously close to atonal in a way rarely heard outside of Failure’s best.
Those lead lines keep you reminded of the brewing anger beneath the surface of even the most atmospheric early tracks, building and beginning to even reach a breaking point of their own in the swelling cacophony that closes centerpiece track “Eileen.”
It’s a compelling throughline that stitches together the album’s different approaches to its sound, from the spacious open chords of “Larkspur” to the spaced-out synth-pop of “r u feeling it?”
So maybe “Satellite Aphrodite” isn’t actually a conceptual effort or an unfolding narrative, but there’s an astute build and a definite arc to the record regardless.
No matter what the intention, that’s the mark of a tightly formed and confident band.
Even if every song is about screwing up.
“Satellite Aphrodite” by Mad Honey is available now on all streaming services and madhoney.bandcamp.com.
Follow Mad Honey online at facebook.com/madhoneyband and on Instagram at @madhoneyband.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
