BOOTCAMP – Time’s Up | Album Review
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Convulse Records
In conversations with friends about our collective feelings of despair watching compounding historical crises from the imperial core, I've been sharing this quote that Sally Rooney gave the New York Times about how she views her job writing novels in the face of calamities: “I suppose I tell myself that in the midst of all of this, people need not become so incredibly overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems that we’re facing as to feel that life itself is no longer meaningful and that there’s no reason to go on.” I worry I’ve been using it as an excuse to justify inaction and complicity in exchange for the comforts of being an American in the face of the final sunset.
That is the prevailing question driving Iowa City hardcore band BOOTCAMP on their debut, Time's Up. What are you doing as the world burns? The system is content to burn the world to the ground to maintain control as we do just enough to pat ourselves on the back, saying we did all we could as the flood waters fill our lungs. BOOTCAMP doesn’t believe bent ears are enough.
Throughout the record, BOOTCAMP points fingers at the petit bourgeois class traitors who enable systems of oppression to continue. On “Email,” vocalist Juliette takes the role of a nude HR drone behind a switched-off Zoom camera, masturbating while denying bereavement leave. On “Endless Commute,” they touch on how communities are purposely divided by urban planning and our reliance on cars. On “Ruins,” they point at city folk like myself who step over people begging in the streets because our need to get lotion from Target overrules our innate empathy. I’m reminded of the time I had to kick someone out of the library because they refused to wear shoes, and I watched them get on their hands and knees to beg. I have never felt more inhuman than in that moment.
BOOTCAMP understands that while the CEOs set the policies, it is in our daily interactions that we enforce the rules because we can’t imagine giving up the slight comforts this dying system affords us. As Juliette screams, “It’s a choice.” That choice is to live in a fantasy, one where the world isn’t built on violence, one where “painting some quirky signs” is enough to enact change.
That is not to say BOOTCAMP spares those in power their ire. “CEO” evokes what happened outside the Hilton Midtown on December 4th, 2024, “September 11th” denounces American imperialism, and “Asylum” begs for the relief of open borders.
At the end of the record, Juliette takes stock of what our collective refusal to change means for the future generations. On closing track “Decision,” they grapple with the idea of bringing a child into a world destined to burn. After a record of pointing fingers begging for change, it is legitimately chilling to hear someone as fearless as Juliette shriek, “Don’t want to bring her into this hell,” as the guitars fume towards the end.
I was watching The Battle of Algiers, a beautiful ode to the freedom fighters who helped overthrow French imperial rule in Algeria, for the first time the other day, and I couldn’t help but think, “when will we have had enough?” BOOTCAMP want you to see that the time has long since passed and find something liberatory in that. In the face of the end, what is left to try but everything.
Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her on insta @Lilllianmweber.
