Sometimes you hear people lamenting the state of rock music, wondering where all the great rock and roll records have gone. Well, I think I found one.
Together Pangea’s Eat Myself is a terrific rock album. There’s a lot of 90s alternative rock in its DNA, but the band doesn’t stick to one sound. The music moves between punk, grunge, garage rock, and power pop, with plenty of noisy guitars and catchy melodies, even when the arrangements get a little rough around the edges.
There’s a darker side to Eat Myself. The songs touch on loneliness, depression, emotional exhaustion, destructive habits, and the difficulty of changing patterns that have become part of your life. The writing can be abstract and occasionally playful, but there’s a surprising amount of introspection beneath the album’s energetic exterior.
The album opens with its title track, a noisy, frenetic blast of punk-inflected grunge. The raw, chaotic energy pushes it closer to noise rock and indie punk, with thick guitars and a strong melodic sensibility underneath. The song suggests an obsession that becomes almost consuming, with the feeling of losing yourself.
That darker mood carries into “Home,” which has a Nirvana quality in the guitar work and William Keegan’s vocal delivery. The song turns loneliness and abandonment into something more aggressive, suggesting someone acting out through rebellious, self-destructive behavior.
The band eases back a little on “Like Your Father,” settling into a more melodic, reflective indie-rock sound. The song gets into questions of identity and aging, particularly the uncomfortable realization that you might be repeating patterns or inheriting traits you’d rather leave behind.
“Halloween” brightens things up considerably, with a brisk, catchy indie-pop sound and an immediately appealing melody. But the brighter music doesn’t mean the melancholy disappears. The song explores the frustration of being unhappy with yourself.
The more restrained “Deep End” is built around a piano-led arrangement, with a slower power-pop sensibility and a little Weezer in the melodic approach. The song seems to capture the inertia that comes with depression: letting things go undone, struggling to find motivation, and feeling stuck in circumstances you don’t know how to change.
Things get a little swaggering again with “Hollywood Trash,” which leans into a chunky, almost 70s glam-rock sound. The guitars have a great attitude, and the melody makes this one particularly enjoyable. Underneath the swagger, the song suggests someone reaching a breaking point with destructive habits and wanting to leave an old version of themselves behind. But the closing moments hint that recognizing the need to change doesn’t mean you’ve actually changed.
From there, “Purple” takes a more relaxed, almost beachy turn. The quieter alternative-rock sound has a psychedelic quality that brings to mind the softer side of Jane’s Addiction. The song also takes a more existential direction, questioning the purpose of life and whether our existence is anything more than a series of random events.
The grungier side of the band returns on “Sunkin,” with a little Smashing Pumpkins in the way it moves between restrained, slightly strained verses and bigger, explosive choruses. The song seems to look back at a time when life was more fun, while recognizing that familiar habits and routines aren’t providing the same satisfaction anymore.
“Empty Church” brings together two sides of the band’s sound. The guitars have a definite Nirvana quality, but there’s also a melodic sensibility that brings a little Beatles into the mix. There’s an interesting ambiguity to the lyrics, which seem to be about leaving something behind, possibly a relationship, but could also be about moving on from an earlier version of yourself.
A catchy, melodic rock foundation gives “Shattered” its shape, but the grimy, almost glam-rock quality of the guitars keeps it from becoming too polished. The song has a certain defiance to it, suggesting someone who’s hit rock bottom, recognized the damage, and refuses to let it define them. But there’s also a recurring image of falling and returning to the top, which raises the possibility that this isn’t really an escape from self-destruction so much as another trip around the same cycle.
The quieter acoustic opening of “Little Demon” doesn’t last long before the song breaks into a much louder, muddier alternative-rock arrangement. There’s a definite Nirvana and Pixies quality to the quiet-loud dynamics as it shifts between introspection and bursts of noisy frustration. The song gets at a sense of apathy and emotional dissatisfaction, that feeling when nothing seems to make you happy or provide much relief.
On “Molly Said,” the band leans into a harder, grungier rock sound, bringing to mind the muscular, slightly psychedelic alternative rock of Monster Magnet. There’s a sharp, angular quality to the guitars, but it’s the bass line that really stands out, driving the song forward and giving it much of its character. The lyrics suggest the exhaustion of simply getting through life without finding much fulfillment in it. It’s a portrait of surviving without really thriving.
Then, just when you think you have the band’s sound figured out, “Burn the Hillside” takes a completely different direction. The grungy guitars give way to a synth-driven, electronic sound, and Keegan adopts a much more controlled, even-keeled vocal delivery. Beneath that brighter sound is another exploration of disconnection, this time focused on communication: the gap between what we want to express and what we’re actually able to say, and how difficult it can be to understand ourselves well enough to communicate with others.
What makes Eat Myself work so well is the combination of all these sounds and ideas. Together Pangea can be noisy, melodic, heavy, playful, and occasionally downright poppy. There’s plenty to think about beneath the surface, but the songs never lose their energy or sense of fun. It’s a terrific rock record, and a reminder that there’s still plenty of life in guitar-driven music.
Verdict: Great
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