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What Is Bad Optics?!
A good question, little simpletons, but you should really be asking HOW is Bad Optics. And the answer is fine, thanks for asking.
Bad Optics is a progressive-post-art-punk band from Seattle, WA. If you want, you can call their music "shamewave." They don't, but you can. Formed in 2018 by singer/guitarist/primary songboy Christian J. Hidell and drummer Joshua Ihler, the band has been releasing music, playing shows, and touring ever since. The current lineup consists of Hidell, Ihler, and Alex Warton. Their music draws on influences ranging from the speed of hardcore punk, the rhythm and rhyme schemes of rap, the absolute wonk of early "new wave" (a truly objectionable term), and the compositional eclecticism of acts such as Cardiacs, The Residents, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
Their latest record has been in the gestation tank for almost a year, but it's time is almost nigh. THE BOUNDED WORLD will be unleashed like a plague upon the world on April 30th, 2025. Expanding on the sound of their previous releases, this new record takes inspiration from Christian millenarian cults, "rationalist" tech freaks, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and mid-century-modern furniture. In addition to their usual cacophonous twin-guitar sound and paranoid songwriting, THE BOUNDED WORLD now features MORE melodies, MORE vocal harmonies, MORE synthesizers, and a glockenspiel. Get ready for fun!
You can listen to the first single, Falling from High Places, right here.XOXO
- Bad Optics
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So What's New?!
"Falling from High Places" out now!
03/21/2025
Bad Optics returns with the song Falling from High Places, the first single from their forthcoming record The Bounded World. The song is a jaunty romp through the bowels of love, featuring the band's signature twin-guitar attack and paranoiac vocals taken a step further into pure mania. Rapid-fire chord progressions slip in and out of each other like a malfunctioning piston, pausing only momentarily during the song's bell-inflected choruses. Fans of time-signature-shifting and key-signature-ignoring will be delighted. Lyrically, the song takes inspiration from 19th-century romantic literature, and it will provide the perfect soundtrack for a relaxing night in with your sweetheart and/or pet of choice.
Accompanying the release is a new music video, which was directed, shot, & edited by the band. Matching the quick-change style of the song, it is a surrealist stew of images featuring faceless ghouls performing senseless tasks.
Bad Optics new record *The Bounded World* will be out April 30th via Panopticon Recordings and Den Tapes.
New album "The Bounded World" out April 30th
03/07/2025
Pull yourself up from the muck, little blind cave salamanders, and rejoice! Bad Optics returns with THE BOUNDED WORLD, a brand new full-length album, a 12-part salve for the psykick wounds inflicted by the absurd hellworld in which we all live. Do you ever wonder, WHAT is the worth of a man? Have you ever asked, IS everything getting worse? Do you find yourself running nude into the night, crying to the heavens in vain, wondering WHERE is the intersection of form and function? Then fear not, friends, for we will provide the answers to these questions and more.
Taking inspiration from Christian millenarian cults, "rationalist" tech freaks, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and mid-century-modern furniture, this new record will be released on April 30th, 2025. In addition to their usual cacophonous twin-guitar sound and paranoid songwriting, Bad Optics now features MORE melodies, MORE vocal harmonies, MORE synthesizers, and a glockenspiel. Get ready for fun!
Lead single Falling from High Places will be released on March 21st along with an accompanying music video. A jaunty romp through the bowels of love, this song can provide the perfect soundtrack for a relaxing night in with your sweetheart and/or pet of choice.