On the final night of the month-long Pure Noise Records Tour, Microwave stepped onstage to a packed theater at The Beacham in Orlando, Florida. Flanked by glowing mushrooms and basking in moody light, the band opened with the groovy and ambient title track to their latest LP.
In April, the group released their fourth full-length album and first in five years, Let’s Start Degeneracy. The record charts new territory sonically for Microwave, pressing pause on their signature emo-tinged melodies and finding the band exploring a softer, more synthesized sound. 2019’s Death is a Warm Blanket saw the band reach heights that were heavier and more distorted than ever before, so Degeneracy might take you by surprise on the surface.
It is more of an evolution than a departure, however, bringing along Microwave’s signature poeticism and rebellious spirit. Lyrically, the album finds a certain peace in the previous uncontrollable chaos of the band’s discography.
The way that Degeneracy serves to compliment its predecessors is exemplified in the band’s live set, elevating their time on the stage to new levels of catharsis and featuring a constant push and pull between the past and present. The anxiety and longing felt in “The Fever” and “Stovall” rolled into the acceptance and new perspective of “Straw Hat.”
The lyric “What if everything’s as perfect as we suspected it would be? What if we dropped the catastrophic fatalist philosophies, and looked at what’s around us, as lucid as our dreams?” in “Huperzine Dreams” felt like liberating a limb from a cast, only to realize that the injury wasn’t fully healed when the band followed with the next song, “Dull.” The angry, unsettled pit in the stomach found in “Thinking of You,” was calmed afterwards with the line, “No one can bring you peace, no one can take it away,” in “Circling The Drain.”
As a whole, Microwave’s live set brings a truth to what the band says themselves on Degeracy’s fourth track, “I’m bored of being sad, it’s not cool anymore.” This is a sentiment that many fans who have grown up alongside the band over the past 11 years can surely relate to—even when revisiting those old wounds in a pit can be needed.
Though the Pure Noise Records tour is through, Microwave undoubtedly has much to look forward to in 2025, including a special anniversary show for their debut album, Stovall, which will take place in their native Atlanta, Georgia. While it will be exciting to see what the future holds for the band, let’s just keep basking in the tranquility of Let’s Start Degeneracy for now.
Microwave
