Sex Mex 23 LP
San Antonio-based SEX MEX, the solo project of Clark Gray turned full touring band, brings us another compilation of previous 2023 releases. This definitely has the vocal distortion and itchy synth lines of a bedroom project, so much so that when I dropped the needle on the opener “New Girl,” I thought my turntable was playing at 45 rpm. Settling into the reality of this fast, lo-fi mania, I found genuinely catchy power pop songs, ultimately preferring the A-side that contains three of the four tracks from the Double Bubble Blowout cassette (the fourth track is on the B-side). The B-side features songs from the We’re a Happy Family cassette, as well as “Better Off Dead” and “Electric Chair” which both made the preceding album Sex Mex 22. And while “Electric Chair” keeps making the cut for these compilations, I think songs like “Bloody Lip” and “Sadie” set a higher bar for the band. Looking back on SEX MEX’s discography, Clark Gray is really trying to build an iconography of his face on the album covers with sort of a middle school Myspace aesthetic, and the music itself seems to be a lot of repacking of songs and albums, to the extent that in April of this year, they put out Repackaged, which is just that. All of these things make me dislike this band, and then I listen to the music and get lost in the bubblegum ecstasy of some glitter-and-balloon party that I can’t help but enjoy. You decide.