The Bug Membership
Very Human Options
Sub Pop
Jul 16, 2025
Internet Unique
The prolific Welsh outfit, The Bug Membership, is again with extra of their delightfully skewed fuzzy garage-rock. The 13 tracks on Very Human Options lean into their established sound and is usually a disarmingly intelligent romp by the mundane. However with out a lot musical variation, the album as a complete leaves one questioning if The Bug Membership’s finest is only a cool novelty act or if they’ve refined and sharpened their sound sufficient to be included in the identical dialog as Viagra Boys, Fats White Household, Cake, or even perhaps Of Montreal.
Typically delivered with the identical sarcastic wit and darkish outlook because the musical touchstones talked about above, vocalists Sam Willmett and Tilly Harris possess a knack for dissecting the on a regular basis with surgical precision and a wink. There’s a pleasant whimsicality to the lyrical observations, discovering the profound within the prosaic, typically with a self-aware chuckle.
This formulation works effectively on songs resembling “Twirling within the Center,” “How one can Be a Confidante,” and almost-title-track “Muck (Very Human Options).” Right here, The Bug Membership present {that a} scruffy, catchy garage-pop will be each tight and splendidly free and wildly entertaining. Because of the understated musicianship, they swerve from jaunty riffs to moments of quiet contemplation with out lacking a beat. Elsewhere although, you’ll have to work too laborious to search out the hooks and the earworms are flittingly uncommon. Whereas a unusual theatricality stays a standard thread all through, the tuneful lo-fi sound doesn’t attain the intricate and infectious musical complexity hinted at on earlier releases.
Very Human Options is a report that manages to be each immediately acquainted and subtly disorienting and is tough to understand if consumed as a complete. It’s higher digested and finest loved in small bites in an effort to recognize the customarily good, catchy, and genuinely humorous indie rock hidden inside. (www.thebugclub.bandcamp.com)
Writer score: 6/10
Fee this album
Common reader score: 6/10
