It is no exaggeration that we are living through some wildly erratic to outright unstable times. As the fabrics of infrastructure, securities, and society feel on the brink of totally collapse; collectively we feel a sense of unease. Dread, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and so many other things that feel part of a growing choir of deep concerns for those that are the most vulnerable amid a slew of draconian policies targeting undocumented peoples, LGBTQ+ communities, BIPOCs, immigrants, women, and ultimately anyone who calls planet Earth home. It is a lot. It feels overwhelming. To even begin to keep track of the full deluge of mindless mayhem of mass distraction is a wild and disheartening task, but nevertheless we cannot let the bastards break us. In times of utter madness and a descent into the throes of fascist executive orders and the like it is important to look toward those that are the most affected. Our neighbors, our co-workers, academic colleagues, acquaintances, to the strangers in the street that are part of our everyday lives. An injury to one spirit of our shared humanity is an attack on everyone. And through the onslaught of senselessness, we can find joy in the way in which we support, uplift, appreciate, and adore one another more radically than ever before.

Having arrived on the LA circuits at the dawn of the turbulent 2020s is Belted Sweater, unveiling their anticipated self-titled album via Self Versed Records and Softseed Records. Helmed by the singular force of visionary Christopher Patrick Gregory, the artist sharpens the queercore presence experienced on the debut album I’m f-cking delightful for something that is increasingly more prescient, urgent, and as immediate as a klaxon or message from an emergency broadcast system (that by the time you are reading this has no doubt been downsized by the department of grievous extremism). Gregory’s new record is an imperative call to protect our LGBT+ communities in the face of fascist imperialism that is tirelessly working to upend any and all progress that countless folks have fought and died for. As a result the mix is bigger, the percussion louder and appropriately more caustic; complements of Gregory’s esteemed drum skills, recorded at our dearly departed king Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio. The lyrics are howled from the heart like lavish gay love letters, all delivered with the subtlety of a Steinway cast out of the penthouse of a robber baron’s ziggurat.

“Meat Pink” kicks off the Belted Sweater self-titled with entries into the clandestine catacombs of underground sanctuaries, like a surrealistic screamo rave in an abandoned food processing factory. "Intercessor" kicks up that momentum like a punk prayer for the displaced, the disenfranchised, the disillusioned, the discriminated, the denied, the deceased, as well as those determined to seek a better society of stability. The big beat of "Still" interrupts the calm of indifference and apathy with ripples of a roaring rage that quakes with a harmonic cacophony of blissful dissonance and the spirit of dissent.

Gregory expertly orchestrates the album's measures of salted saccharine, and sad synths that give way to catchy ear-worms rife with sweetness, sensuality, anger, pain, etcetera, all executed in a grandiose production with ground ripping intensity. This pointed and paradoxical blend can be heard and felt in the earth rumbling tremors of "Cherry Grove" that straddles the fault lines between agony and ecstasy that feels like the liberation of finding a new beginning from the blood draining jaws of entropy. These pop palaces of dazzling beauty and utter decay blossom and bloom with plenty of atmospheric bombast in the faces of gloom and doom on "Wilt". Places of candid bliss find spaces to let their light and swagger flourish on "Rim Queen", before being bathed in the ultra-goth luster of "More Rack Romts (Than People in the Audience)".

Gregory shreds the sullen veils of apathy on the penultimate epic "Idle", that arrives at the graceful waters of regenerative respite on "Queer Joy" that offers a transcendent escape from the horrors of our collective modern day realities. Belted Sweater battles the backwards incumbent forces that prey upon our human interests, contending with the chaos agents along with their edicts, actions, and sycophantic armies by countering with exhibitions of unapologetic love and unbridled emotion. Gregory sends out a message of how to survive today’s hellscape by surrendering to the people, purposes, and things that give the truths of happiness.

Belted Sweater’s Christopher Patrick Gregory shared some insights on the new album:

The lyrics on this record bemoan the current state of the world, with the rise of fascism and the rollback of hard fought LGBT protections in the U.S.

But the album’s creation from start to finish was an absolute joy, and perhaps that’s the main takeaway, we have to find joy where we can, we have to take care of each other, and we have to organize to create a better world.

Belted Sweater’s self-titled arrives February 21 via Self Versed Records and Softseed Music (offshoot imprint of Zegema Beach Records).