Is It Now? - Automatic

By Luke Laredo

Izzy Glaudini’s inspiration for forming Automatic was, among other things, to be an answer to LA’s male dominated indie rock scene, and the uninspired songs that she thought were “pumped out like plastic bottles into the ocean.” [Spinning Top] Is It Now? doesn’t claim to have answers to Glaudini’s angst about the scene she’s a part of and the world at large, but does push the message that there’s hope to be found. 

The album’s first track, ‘Black Box’, makes a grand entrance, with a crashing symphony of drums that quickly transitions to a pulsing bassline. This bass, often accompanied by Glaudini’s wailing synth, is the work of Halle Saxon. Drumming alongside them is Lola Dompé, whose passion for music stems in part from her father Kevin Dompé, better known as Kevin Haskins of Bauhaus. The pounding of bass and drums are the beat in the veins of the album. They are a defining aspect of Automatic’s style and a through line that bridges the songs together almost seamlessly. The points where the bass fully disappears are few and when it does the songs take on a moodier tone.

‘Black Box’s dreamlike vocals clash with its message of despair at the industry. Lines like “Art is defiled by the masters of the world / They’re pulling down the strings / cutting down everything”  hammer their message loudly and repeatedly, but this anger is hidden behind the oniric vocals. The first half of the album charts a descent into a resigned depression as Glaudini continues her rumination on modern life in the haunting yet catchy ‘Mercury’, with lines like “Now the city’s gone / full of decay / think until your mind / starts to ache”. 

While each song marches to the beat of Dompé’s drums, the tempo and pitch deliberately varies from track to track, something that is done better here than on their previous album Excess, Automatic’s first album produced by Loren Humphrey. Here, in their second collaboration, the evolution of their style can be felt. There’s a more nuanced use of instrumentals that goes beyond making as much noise as possible, and serves to further the album’s narrative. Glaudini’s synth is subtler, making room for her vocals to shine. The sound is injected with the characteristic harshness of indie rock when it wants to be, ‘Country Song’ is evidence of that, but almost feels pensive here, compared to Excess’s much more frantic tracks. ‘On the Edge’ springs to mind as one that, while catchy, gets gratingly repetitive around the fifteenth repetition of “I’m on the edge / I’m on the edge”.

The weakest track, ‘Don’t Wanna Dance’, has a few of the same issues as Automatic’s previous work, the repetition of “I don’t wanna dance” being chief among them. However, for the album as a whole ‘Don’t Wanna Dance’ provides a low point in the tale of melancholy woven by the previous tracks. Glaudini is admitting that she’s sick of participating – burnt-out, and frustrated. She’s posing another question: how can you carry on when it’s so hopeless? On its own, the song isn’t as engaging as the others, but the lack of the distinctive bass guitar and drumming makes the instruments’ return all the more cathartic in ‘Smog Summer’.

The last four songs aren’t quite a solution to the depression of those before, but more of a triumphant cry that there’s still hope, those who abuse power will be held to account, and until then there’s still reason to resist. ‘The Prize’ is still lamenting modern issues, the same universal anxieties feature here as in the rest of the album: climate-change, corruption, and violence being an all too accepted part of life. There’s also a well deserved dig at the cocksure type of guys who think they’re God’s gift to women. ‘Playboi’ ridicules these men, with Dompé’s drumming the fastest and angriest it’s been so far. 

Is It Now? is Automatic’s electronic mantra of resistance, of your own music with their own message, of not bowing under the pressure from those who would sell their family to make a dollar. Automatic isn’t being subtle, they’re calling out the issues at hand using a strong bassline and beautiful synths as the vehicle. As Glaudini put it herself, when asked about the lyrics and their initially bleak sounding message, “Despite the horrible shit constantly happening, life can still be mysterious and beautiful. I wanted to lean into a sense of dreaminess, and to have the verses feel like a dark lullaby.” [Stereogum Interview]