It doesn’t begin so much as it materialises—Stay Calm by Wreck and Reference arrives like a signal intercepted from somewhere unstable, its shape shifting the moment you think you’ve grasped it. Pressing play feels less like listening to an album and more like opening a strange portal, where unpredictability is the only constant.
Across their catalogue, that volatility has been the band’s signature, but here they refine it into something even sharper. The record folds together post-metal weight, noise rock abrasion, and stretches of drone, all threaded with uncanny, glitchy and weird synths that refuse to sit still or be pinned down. What’s most striking is how seamlessly it all coheres, compact, deliberate, and sculpted with precision.
More than just an experiment in sound, Stay Calm lands like a direct response to the global unravelling of the past five years or so, a soundtrack to collective anxiety, depression and general unease. Its release feels perfectly timed, as though the duo have distilled chaos into a form that both reflects and steadies it. It’s unnerving, cathartic, and oddly reassuring—a record that thrives in the tension between collapse and control.
Stream below and purchase the album here.
Acute Pop 