{"id":135061,"date":"2025-05-27T04:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T04:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/135061\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T04:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T04:57:09","slug":"mspaint-no-separation-ep-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/135061\/","title":{"rendered":"MSPAINT: No Separation EP Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyberpunk movies are certain that in a near-distant future, AI will conquer humans by discreetly simulating reality<\/a>, trading digitally archived POV memories<\/a>, or cloning us entirely<\/a>. As we crawl closer to\u2014or even surpass\u2014cinema\u2019s fictional predictions each decade, those doomsday themes remain the same. It\u2019s<\/a> not<\/a> hard<\/a> to<\/a> imagine<\/a> why<\/a>. But synth-punk mavericks MSPAINT<\/a> don\u2019t subscribe to leather-clad assassins or red-pill propaganda as salvation. From its inception in 2019, the Mississippi band has crafted galvanizing, anthemic records about using positivity to push back against the world\u2019s harms. Not to be mistaken for blind optimism or egotism, their earnestness is instead candid and community-oriented. No Separation, their latest EP, ups the stakes of their digitized punk, offering an urgent call-to-arms befitting our own dystopia offscreen.<\/p>\n

No matter how blown-out the bass or experimental the synths were on Post-American<\/a>, their 2023 debut album, MSPAINT were bound to become louder and more hardwired on their eventual follow-up. Following three tours of Europe last year alone, a dream that they never imagined happening, the four-piece returned to the sticky air of home\u2014Hattiesburg, Mississippi\u2014both exhausted and energized. No Separation sounds like MSPAINT clawed their way out of the mainframe to get there, hair jolted upright and fingertips singed, fueled by determination. Buffering the band\u2019s sound with metal bristles are producers Julian Cashwan Pratt and Harlan Steed of Show Me the Body<\/a>, who accentuate MSPAINT\u2019s flirtations with industrial music. \u201cWildfire\u201d rattles with Randy Riley\u2019s sliding bass and a thundering beat from Quinn Mackey, their amped-up rhythm section begging to soundtrack a Strange Days chase scene through a seedy \u201990s nightclub. Nick Panella is the star of the EP, though, with synth manipulations that evoke Arabic maqam melodies (\u201cSurveillance\u201d), pixelated chords that turn into cascading fuzz (\u201cDrift\u201d) and retro dream sequences (\u201cAngel\u201d); Cyberpunk 2077 developers will retroactively wish they commissioned MSPAINT to score the video game.<\/p>\n

MSPAINT preach the power of community, one they\u2019ve built alongside other bands\u2014like Militarie Gun<\/a> and Soul Glo<\/a>, whose vocalists both<\/a> appear<\/a> on Post-American\u2014and various outspoken punks they\u2019ve met on tour. This strength helps Deedee, the band\u2019s free-spirited vocalist, express unabashed hope in spite of a world desperate to snuff the quality out, whether yelling about profit margins benefitting evil, our own complicity in broken systems, or the refusal to cede your power as a worker. \u201cIf this world is falling apart, why don\u2019t we just fall together?\u201d Deedee proposes; draped with skittering hi-hats and synth effects, the view from up there looks stunning. Across No Separation, Deedee preaches words of revolution that could double as sci-fi movie poster pull-quotes: \u201cWe were not born to form in lines,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s not your world. It\u2019s been bought,\u201d \u201cAre you not tired of waiting for nothing to save you?\u201d If MSPAINT rooted their past music in mindfulness, this EP posits that civil disobedience is the foundation of collective enlightenment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cyberpunk movies are certain that in a near-distant future, AI will conquer humans by discreetly simulating reality, trading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[31104,77,269,16,15,4715],"class_list":{"0":"post-135061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114578026844337787","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}