There’s a couple of reasons you know “Absurdus Manifestus” is going to be great before you’ve even pressed play. First, Stepmother are a trio, and trios are nearly always more fun than common sense says they ought to be. Second, it’s on Tee Pee Records, which is about as close as you get to a guarantee that there’ll be riffs everywhere, fuzz all over the place and at least a faint sense that the whole thing might come off the rails in the best possible way.
And from the start, that is exactly what happens.
“Vacant State” kicks the door open with a classic punk snarl, but the solo is caked in perfect garage-bred grime. It sounds alive, scrappy and just a little dangerous. “New World” follows with the sort of bassline that nails everything to the floor while the song itself swaggers like The Stooges have turned up demanding their property back. The joke, of course, is that Stepmother would probably just nick it anyway and make it filthier.
That’s the trick here. This is old rock’n’roll, old punk, old proto-metal, all dragged into one glorious racket. “Beast And Man” is as classic as this stuff gets, basically Chuck Berry fed through distortion pedals and bad intentions, and it is impossible not to love. “Dead Meat,” meanwhile, lasts barely over a minute and a half, but in that short time it manages to be all energy and elbows. No fat, no filler, just impact.
Even when the lyrics appear to be staring down the future, the feel of the record is all end-times panic and late-60s/early-70s chaos. “What’s New” has that exact tension. “Slice Of Life” carries an early Alice Cooper-type mood, all melody wrapped in something twisted. “End Of The Line” and “Don’t Be Long” prove this lot know harmony as well as hammer. The former sounds like a gang heading for oblivion with a grin on its face; the latter suggests that if the end is near, Stepmother are at least going down swinging.
By the time “Sick Thoughts” turns up, you start refusing to believe this record came out in 2026 at all. Surely this thing was unearthed from some forgotten studio where a gang of maniacs were making beautifully primitive noise in 1969. Clise, it should be said, is a superb guitarist throughout, and the closing run — especially “Journey To The Center Of The Mind” — is action-packed, full of movement, colour and a proper headlong rush.
Clise says this is “our take on a psych-punk dystopian anthem,” and honestly, that feels about right. “In this disappointing, hazardous sci-fi reality”, as they put it, “Absurdus Manifestus” feels like the soundtrack you needed — even if there’s a fair chance you’ll smash half the house up while listening to it.
RATING 9/10
