MX LONELY – PERFECT HOUSE | EP Review
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Julia’s War Recordings
In Brooklyn, nestled off the Myrtle-Broadway stop of the M and L trains, lies Market Hotel, one of the borough's most iconic independent music venues. You can often spot its sweaty, condensation-stained windows from blocks away, thanks to the multi-colored strip lights that line each frame. Its history, much like the neighborhood itself, has evolved with the times. Originally a bank in the 1800s and a nightclub in the 1960s, the building found new life in the burgeoning Brooklyn music scene in the late 2000s. After shutting down in 2010 due to unsafe conditions imposed by the NYPD, the community came together to keep the lights on. After a painstaking series of renovations, the building reopened in 2015.
At first glance, one could see the venue as another casualty of New York’s capitalist expansion, shifting from a heralded “vibrant arts space in a dilapidated and slightly dangerous area” into a now memed-to-death poster child for the average Bushwickian transplant’s late night out. However, unlike many of the buildings that house these types of shows (especially the rare mainstays over in the neighboring, ever-sterile Williamsburg), Market Hotel has stayed true to its roots in the DIY scene, with the space just as likely to host a Tumblr dance night as it is to give flowers to a punk show.
This past February, I had the pleasure of watching MX LONELY headline Market Hotel in celebration of their then-just-released sophomore record, ALL MONSTERS. The group brought their friends in Shower Curtain, Bloodsports, and Wiring to round out the evening, bringing together four disparate branches of the New York scene for a well-rounded night of headbanging.
What impressed me most about MX LONELY’s set, in particular, was how they commanded every inch of the room for a record that had been released maybe a week prior. Vocalist Rae Haas stood on (or hung off) every surface they could, while guitarist/vocalist Jake Harms slammed audiences with shrill, riffy guitar tones. Alongside them, Gabe Garman grooved on bass like his body movements were propelling the sound forward, and Andrew Rapp worked every inch of his arms to match the rhythm on the drums. It’s a triumph to see a band this beloved look so locked-in onstage.
Photo by Samuel Leon
At the beginning of their shows, Haas proclaims, “We’re MX LONELY, and we’ll be your exorcist for the evening.” This exorcism is twofold: a release for audience members desperate to shed the weight of the modern world, and a moment for the members of MX to channel their words as a communicative device. This relationship is clear: no matter what setting the group finds itself in, participants in this ritual-like cleanse give that energy back to the quartet in spades, whether it’s a call-and-response to the lyrics or kicking up a mosh pit at a moment’s notice. The strong NY community makes projects like PERFECT HOUSE feel less like a band rushing to pump something out and more like a love letter to the friends and collaborators that propelled them to these stages.
Where ALL MONSTERS takes a deep and sometimes-harrowing dive into the creation of monsters within the corners of one’s psyche, PERFECT HOUSE feels like the exorcism Haas talks about at the beginning of the live set. While the dark moments remain, the underlying feeling of an explosion begins to shine through, waiting to set the demons ablaze inside the house they live in, much like the blaze captured on the EP’s cover. This release grew out of a resurrection of demos from earlier in the band’s career, carefully layering new songwriting approaches onto the base of their previous work instead of simply recreating old material. Thanks to collaborations with Brooklyn singer-songwriter Caitlin Starr and Wiring guitarist Connor Gibson, along with Garman engineering the tones, the group created a world entirely of their own design. This unique approach of past, present, and future colliding into one project achieves a temporal harmony that invites collaboration without losing the essence of the magic the four members created in the first place.
Take the music video for “March 16th,” a black-and-white series of vignettes that captures dancing punks in matching outfits in an anonymous setting. The song’s universe feels like a communal celebration, highlighting the collaborative efforts that the band champions. From the dancing punks arriving via a casting call the band put out to Kaitlin Starr’s feature and local photographer/media extraordinaire Owen Lehman’s video work, the group assembles an all-star team from their community to make the song richer and more exciting. “March 16th” is also the track most directly linked to ALL MONSTERS, with similar crushing guitars and resonant cymbals found throughout that record.
One of the more true-to-form callbacks to their former sound palettes, “Bird,” is an acoustic-crafted cut, save for some beautiful underscores of shimmering guitars towards the back end of the track. The song features a great display of Haas and Harms’ vocal dynamics, both shifting into their higher registers to create a memorable chorus. In many ways, “Bird” feels like the EP’s ideas in full form, creating an MX LONELY-type ambiance without feeling set in a specific period of the band’s history.
On the opposite end, “Twenty Seconds” feels like MX LONELY leaning further into their trademark gothic storytelling. Something eerie is at work in the track's sonic construction, with the initially ambiguous lyrics like “Twenty seconds under water / makes me want to stay longer” taking on a darker tone as more sinister guitar passages are added. The lyrics clearly mean something specific to the band, but that meaning is intentionally obscured, letting listeners fill in the blanks with their own horrors and unease. Judging from the clues left behind, the image might not look as pristine as some might believe.
Finally, “Ex Rae Punk” shines as a well-crafted reinvention, thanks to a poignantly diaristic songwriting style complemented by bombastic execution. The play on words here is quite direct, with a former partner of Haas now referring to them as their “Ex Rae,” but the tragedy of the fallout is the realization that they never really saw Haas at all, hence lyrics such as “See right through you, see right through me.” This song has lived in the world since 2019, with its first iteration appearing on the now-defunct V0ID B0YS project, but it's reimagined here, giving the former acoustic track a newfound sense of purpose and reflection. Time may not heal all wounds, but it certainly gives new perspectives that can’t be seen in the heat of the moment.
MX LONELY is a band that gives themselves space to continuously reinvent their history, with PERFECT HOUSE inviting fans to experience the band’s creative process from the beginning to the present. Even if this is a smaller helping of work than their output earlier in the year, the level of detail and love for their work keeps the EP from being any less important to the story. It’s going to be fascinating to see what the next chapter of the journey is for MX LONELY. Make sure to go hard in the crowd the next time the band is in your town; you never know what demons need an exorcism.
By day, Samuel Leon shares factoids about contemporary art with members of the public. By night, Sam’s either cooking an orzo dish, watching a movie, or capturing New York performances with his camera. You can find his relic of a digital footprint at @sleonpics.
