Last year, VNTAGEPARADISE released The Parable of the Sensei, a maximalist indie rock collage. Equally indebted to Yves Tumor and Kele Okereke, the rock that the Nigerian shapeshifter makes is bright and twitchy—think Gang of Four on Adderall. His latest single, “Wicked,” starts out as a straight-forward post-punk number. He starts by spitting lyrics fast over rapid guitar and a tight rhythm section, and around twenty seconds in, things get weird. Suddenly all the instrumentation disappears, and VNTAGEPARADISE whispers as if he’s summoning a demon. After that brief gothic spell, we are thrust back into Guitarland, and VNTAGEPARADISE is calling himself the “the Angel Tenshi.” The rest of the song jitters in a stop-and-start manner—it feels like being taken around a battered landscape in a jalopy operated by someone who thinks they might just be God. It’s the type of frenetic, loose pop music that can convert a rigid skeptic into a diehard believer. Just get in and let him take you anywhere.
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