Cyberpunk movies are certain that in a near-distant future, AI will conquer humans by discreetly simulating reality, trading digitally archived POV memories, or cloning us entirely. As we crawl closer to—or even surpass—cinema’s fictional predictions each decade, those doomsday themes remain the same. It’s not hard to imagine why. But synth-punk mavericks MSPAINT don’t 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’s 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.
No matter how blown-out the bass or experimental the synths were on Post-American, 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—Hattiesburg, Mississippi—both 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’s sound with metal bristles are producers Julian Cashwan Pratt and Harlan Steed of Show Me the Body, who accentuate MSPAINT’s flirtations with industrial music. “Wildfire” rattles with Randy Riley’s 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 ’90s nightclub. Nick Panella is the star of the EP, though, with synth manipulations that evoke Arabic maqam melodies (“Surveillance”), pixelated chords that turn into cascading fuzz (“Drift”) and retro dream sequences (“Angel”); Cyberpunk 2077 developers will retroactively wish they commissioned MSPAINT to score the video game.
MSPAINT preach the power of community, one they’ve built alongside other bands—like Militarie Gun and Soul Glo, whose vocalists both appear on Post-American—and various outspoken punks they’ve met on tour. This strength helps Deedee, the band’s 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. “If this world is falling apart, why don’t we just fall together?” 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: “We were not born to form in lines,” “It’s not your world. It’s been bought,” “Are you not tired of waiting for nothing to save you?” If MSPAINT rooted their past music in mindfulness, this EP posits that civil disobedience is the foundation of collective enlightenment.
