New Releases

Avant-garde Austin band J'cuuzi releases dark glam debut EP

J'cuuzi at Hotel Vegas.

Photo by Ismael Quintanilla III

Austin artists J'cuuzi have been skyrocketing in popularity over the past year thanks to their eccentric approach to live music and performance art. The stage is perfectly set for the group to release their first collection of songs, titled Sludgecontent (stylized SLUDGEcontent), on July 25.

What most people would call an EP, in a recent press release, J'cuuzi is calling "a new comprehensive appetizer sampler listening experience (CASLE), more akin to a doomscroll-themed playlist than a conventional extended play."

Similarly, when speaking of the "band," it may be more accurate to describe J'cuuzi as a shifting ensemble of larger-than-life characters. Swathed in avant-garde style and with the type of energy that could power an entire city, this two- and sometimes three-person troupe equally embraces fashion shoots and mosh pits.

Lest listeners get too intellectual about it, though, the tongue-in-cheek release urges readers to "turn off your brain and turn your limited attention to SLUDGEcontent."

Sludgecontent is made up of five synthy, trippy, danceable, and glam rock tracks.

It's hard not to bop along to the melty psychedelic-meets-pop anthem that opens the EP, "Fame by Death." It is a prime example of J'cuuzi's ability to mix a dark, primordial, and hedonistic sound with something light, playful, and pop-friendly; perfectly put to story in the just-released "Fame by Death" music video. (Link and embed contain flashing images.)

The band follows that explosive opening with "Bad Toy," a song feels like watching a campy horror '80s movie about haunted vibrators — that ends up actually being haunting itself. With Trey Razeldazl's dark, distorted vocals and Gorge Bones' melodic vocal complement, what could have been a ridiculous song (and still is, lyrically) sounds cinematic and cool.

In the first two tracks, we hear a very garbled version of Trey's voice; in the next, the effects are limited for a much clearer delivery. In this way, this song is an honest, slightly scaled-back peek into what the two singers sound like when harmonizing together, which ultimately culminates in utter chaos.

The two tracks that wrap up the EP call other artsy touchstones to mind. "Big Machine" tells the tale of a visit to the mechanic and the dread that ensues. It starts out with more '80s sounds and B-52's cadences, and moves into a beautiful, mournful chorus that echoes grandiose country-western ballads harmonically, if not by any other measure.

It's followed by "How 2 Get Everything You've Always Wanted 4 Free (Forever)," which falls somewhere between Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand that Feeds" and Marilyn Manson's "The Dope Show," with sprinklings of quirky sound effects, plucky guitar riffs, and otherworldly harmonies from Gorge.

J'cuuzi band members Left to right: J'cuuzi members Gorge Bones and Trey Razeldazl.Photo by Vicious Velma

"Releasing this EP feels like turning the last page of a great book’s prologue," writes J'cuuzi in a joint email to CultureMap. "So I guess we’re most excited to see what’s in the next chapter." (The ambiguously penned email assures, "They pretty much share a brain and finish each other's sentences.")

Though this album is a big accomplishment as a whole, Trey and Gorge do have their favorites. For Trey, it's "How 2 Get Everything..." because they started recording it back in 2017 and "since then the song has only increased in relevance in my life." And for Gorge, it's "Bad Toy."

"It was the first time I ever threw my uhh patented songwriting style (where someone tells me their established idea/story for a song and I write something entirely unrelated in every way)," writes Gorge.

Aside from this exciting new EP release, J'cuuzi has a lot to celebrate right now. They were recently named KUTX Artist of the month for July, this weekend they're playing Mohawk's outdoor stage at Hot Summer Nights on Saturday, and in October, they're opening for Viagra Boys and Stereolab as part of Levitation's new mini-festival.

The latter may well be their biggest show yet, and J'cuuzi will definitely show up in full J'cuuzi style: the stage is dressed to look like a cheap apartment with a dusty blue egg chair and a guitar amp on either side of a bedazzled ironing board, and they'll take to it wearing matching handmade couture. Expect over-the-top bulbous proportions and a performance that won't be confined by the stage.

"We are a bit worried for the other bands," J'cuzzi writes. "We are going to try to wrestle them."

Sludgecontent is available for purchase and streaming via major platforms here.

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Movie Review

Soft horror film Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is almost truly scary

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films like M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not, they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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