Coke Bottle Clear LP! Mansions fourth LP calls itself Big Bad, referring to the conscious and unconscious ways we react to our own mortality and self-sabotage the good things in life. While fans of Mansions previous releases - 2011's Dig Up the Dead, 2013's Doom Loop, and 2017's Deserter - will appreciate Big Bad's strikingly personal lyrics and lush atmosphere, Big Bad is more indicative of a specific place in time and the visceral feelings that go along with it than it is a direct follow-up to any of the band's previous work. The Big Bad world sucks you in. You're alone in a run-down motel with no memory of how you got there. The sounds around you feel like they're playing inside your own head. Hazy synthesizers reel from cassette tapes. Reverb drips from old spring tanks. Pro wrestling pay-per-view drones in the background. The dust from a grav-el parking lot blows in the door. Guitar bleeds from combo amps in from the next room over. Bass rumbles in the pit of your stomach. A champagne bottle breaks on the bathroom floor. Electric piano pulses and rings out indefinitely. The maid is knocking on the door. You start losing your sense of place. You're in the dark corner of a bar. You're in the trunk of a car. You're underwater. The sun is exploding. You're new again. You might be losing your hair. You need to weed the yard. It's a wonderful life, when the angle's just right.
