Album Review: Dearborn — 'Memo for a Friend'

There’s a particular atmosphere to a sleepless night. More than likely, it culminates in stumbling through a dark room and mental fog to turn on the TV, hoping bottom-shelf infomercials and reruns of yesteryear sitcoms quiet your mind. In those moments, when the rest of the world is asleep, it can feel like you’re on a plane between dreaming and awake — a Twilight Zone of stillness and hazy pasts.

That’s the plane of existence in which Dearborn’s Memo For A Friend exists, with its static and haunting vocal distortions. Opening track “don’t hurt your mom” starts with a gradual fade-in of static and indiscernible background voices, setting the stage for a night of channel surfing. Then, Dearborn’s sound comes jarringly into focus — a signal is reached. Fuzzy guitars and drumbeats overtake those frequencies, creating a tundra of noise, intercut with abrupt moments of silence. It’s an energized, provocative beginning, soon joined by raw poetic pleading, “You’re sinking a hole in me / You watch me bleed.”

The entirety of Dearborn fires on all cylinders: Elijah Mickey carries a unique vocal tone, switching in an instant from acoustic demo to echoey distortion; lead guitarist Jonah Marcussen and bassist Elias Smith layer thick sound collages of throwback grunge, and drummer Aaron Knight propels each track to full euphoric heights with dual tenderness and explosive force. The resulting musician collision is a confident, hauntingly vibey first EP effort from the new Iowa City four-piece.

“Sore” and “yeuw” were chosen as lead singles, and for good reason. They’re hypnotic standouts from the six-song tracklist. “We don’t breathe the same and that’s OK, I’ll hold my breath with you,” Mickey repeats with increasing urgency, punctuated by crunchy feedback and wailing guitars. The night wears on, and “yeuw” brings with it a very early 2000s catchy beat loop that calls to mind the backing track of those piracy PSAs, unskippable on a dingy copy of a DVD. Squint hard enough, and maybe the words “You wouldn’t steal a car…” crackle onto the screen.

Between heavy, textured tracks, “Honey,” “Memo for a Friend” and “spacesounds” add levity and warmth through light strumming, punched-up vocals and spacey production. With how loudly the collection of songs bursts in, the effort ends delicately. In its fully realized form, the layered ambience Dearborn creates really shines, oozing in Midwest emo nostalgia and sonic dreamscapes, all paired with dynamic vocal effects and distortions, amping up the yearning and shouting into the stratosphere.

With the recent cultural fascination surrounding found, analog, uncanny-valley media and aesthetics, the Memo For A Friend feels like a worthy addition to the oeuvre. This EP could be the backing track to the TV revived in the middle of the night, or a static-y, well-loved cassette. The imagery utilized in music videos and marketing for the project includes a plethora of oblong heads made from large-mouthed cardboard masks strapped to each band member. They call to mind No-Face from Spirited Away and the eerie low-budget fantasy costuming in I Saw the TV Glow. Perhaps they are your sleep paralysis demons on that late, sleepless night.

That may be the most impressive aspect of Memo for a Friend: it provokes nostalgia while sounding unlike anything you’re ever heard before — at least on this plane of consciousness.