When the Coronavirus pandemic stopped the world, plenty of musicians turned from touring and live performance and entered the studio. Many of them emerged from those studios with albums that reflected on isolation and global unrest as if it was a novel idea that wasn’t affecting every single person in the world.

But for Roger Poulin, the creative force behind Binding Spell, his isolation got a bit of a head start. In 2019 Poulin and his wife separated, and he moved into a basement apartment near Capitol Hill in Washington DC. In the midst of divorce and depression, his life settled into a pattern of isolation on its own.

In March the world joined him. The day DC announced its first lockdown, Poulin began writing. According to him he was in complete isolation until June, watching the world shift from pandemic to protest to political upheaval. And while this is hardly the first pandemic record released into the world, I’m not sure I’ve heard one that summed up the emotional toll of alternating between the extremes of monotony and chaos quite as well as English Basement.

Much of its effectiveness is due to the genre. Post punk has always excelled at portraying paranoia, ennui, and unease, and this record is no exception. The hypnotic synths, bass, and drum patterns of the song structures are paired with Poulin’s disaffected voice and frantic electric guitars to create a soundscape that perfectly captures the disorientation and anxiety that the pandemic brought with it (that sense of isolation is only added by the fact that the contributing musicians recorded their parts on their own as well). But thankfully this album avoids the Mood-by-Numbers formula that so many post-punk acts fall into. Where many of their contemporaries seem to still be just peeking over at Joy Division and taking notes, Binding Spell uses post-punk as a tool without ever being beholden to it. Beyond the stark monochromatic palette of the genre are shades of Kraftwerk, Bowie in Berlin, and Talking Heads besides genre benders like LCD Soundsystem.

“Living Is Just Dreaming” benefits from an injection of 60s psychedelia. “Been Better” features sardonic guest vocals from Sarah Philips over a stabby garage rock track. The urgent “Intermission” is indebted to Krautrock legends like Neu! and Faust. “Cigarettes and Perfume” is almost a country song, but it’s more Orville Peck than Travis Tritt. The title track is a pensive, tambourine-aided mood piece that gets as close to anthemic as post punk gets (besides U2, I mean). “Canvas and Paint” is an ode to all of the well-intentioned projects we swore we’d finish during quarantine that remain untouched. Poulin sings, “I’ve got piles of clothes to fold / houseplants crumbling into mold / half wrote novels and works of gold / ripped jeans and buttons to fold.” Who among us, amiright?

This combination of influences is further coaxed into being by mixing engineer Ben Etter, whose previous work with chillwave legends Washed Out and genre-alchemists Deerhunter no doubt set him up for success with this project.

What makes this album all the more impressive is that besides the press release for this album and their self-managed Bandcamp page, I can’t find anything online about Binding Spell. This album appears to have been conjured into being in a vacuum. But if there’s any justice in the world, it won’t stay there. This is a classic album that is waiting for the audience it deserves.

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