Preoccupations emerge from the shadows with Ill at Ease, a tense, exhilarating plunge into their most refined and emotionally charged work to date. The Calgary quartet—long masters of sonic unease—tighten the screws across eight tracks that feel like they’re racing toward the brink, yet never lose control. This is post-punk with muscle and menace, but also startling vulnerability.
From the opening moments of “Burning Out,” it’s clear Ill at Ease isn’t just another iteration of their brooding blueprint—it’s a reinvention cloaked in anxiety and adrenaline. Basslines grind like machinery on the verge of collapse, while guitars stab and shimmer in equal measure, evoking the icy precision of Unknown Pleasures-era Joy Division filtered through modern disillusionment.
Matt Flegel’s vocals are more gripping than ever, alternating between deadpan resignation and explosive catharsis. On “Focus,” his voice cuts through the sonic storm like a flare in a blackout—haunted, raw, and weirdly comforting. The title track, “Ill at Ease,” is a claustrophobic spiral of delayed guitars and ghostly synths that tap into the band’s knack for tension and release, wrapping paranoia in melody.
The band grapples with existential rot, digital fatigue, and the slow erosion of optimism in a world increasingly hostile to nuance. But rather than sink into despair, Preoccupations lean into movement—this is an album that pulses, races, and lashes out, refusing stasis even when it aches.
With production that balances industrial grit and atmospheric sprawl, Ill at Ease feels like a warning and a lifeline. It’s Preoccupations’ most accessible record—and paradoxically, their darkest. But it’s that friction that makes it so vital: beauty forged in collapse, motion as survival. They sound like a band with nothing left to lose, and everything left to prove.
Rating 9/10 – EXCELLENT Album