{"id":562190,"date":"2026-07-22T08:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T08:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/562190\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T08:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T08:19:09","slug":"the-garden-bootleg-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/562190\/","title":{"rendered":"The Garden: Bootleg Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

If not for Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark\u2014Alvin Schwartz\u2019s infamous anthology series of folk stories that have haunted grade school book fairs for decades\u2014The Garden<\/a> as we know them might not exist. Ever since twin brothers Fletcher and Wyatt Shears began releasing their brand of sun-bleached, goofball punk rock in the early 2010s, they\u2019ve cited<\/a> the book<\/a>\u2019s influence<\/a> on their work with Biblical reverence and referenced its nightmare-inducing illustrations in the cover art of side projects<\/a>. The true parallel, however, is structural: Where Schwartz\u2019s writing was succinct and vernacular, so too is the twins\u2019 output across The Garden\u2019s six studio albums and various EPs (and sprawling network<\/a> of alter<\/a> egos<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In recent years, the typical Shears song has cloaked descriptions of paranormal encounters in hardcore distortion and cartoon sound effects, fleshing out the twins\u2019 strange world while hinting at weirder mysteries beneath the surface. Bootleg, their latest release, is the most stylistically diverse entry in their catalog; it\u2019s also the first to fully realize their attempts at creating their own compendium of folklore. Bouncing from slobbery hardcore to breakbeat-infused rap-rock, each cut feels like an entry in a monster-of-the-week narrative \u00e0 la The X Files or the early seasons of the twins\u2019 beloved Yu Yu Hakusho<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

Bootleg\u2019s production deepens the sense of mystery, cranking the reverb and scuffing the surfaces. In opposition to the punchy, in-your-face timbre of their prior releases, the new record sounds like it\u2019s coming from a venue\u2019s PA system, replicating dusty theatre acoustics and imbuing the music with a looser, roomier feel. They take advantage of this spaciousness to pursue bigger melodies, the kind you\u2019re more likely to find in their work as Enjoy<\/a> or Puzzle<\/a>. Chiming post-punk leads lift the twins\u2019 hooks to new heights on the opening one-two punch of \u201cUgly\u201d and \u201cPin Drop,\u201d projecting color into what would otherwise be a monochrome dustup of bass and percussion. Even the experiments in junglism and club music, which have been a staple of Garden albums since 2015\u2019s haha, are more vivid, with Badalamenti<\/a>-esque chords and canned haunted-house organ patches undergirding the breakbeats. It\u2019s all saturated with juicy echo that mirrors Scary Stories\u2019 dripping, ink-splattered effects: The music\u2019s pop at its core, but there\u2019s a constant unease that\u2019ll keep you looking out for booby traps and trick doors.<\/p>\n

The samples scattered throughout the album, borrowed from ghost-hunting TV programs and direct quotes from Schwartz\u2019s audiobooks, heighten this tension. Images of shape-shifting witches and cursed doors blur the lines between reality and the twins\u2019 childlike imagination. On the title track, the twins describe these flights of fancy with the escapist romance of a road novelist: \u201cAlways wonder what\u2019s out there\/I\u2019d like to get me a piece,\u201d they sing, pining for \u201cempty towns\u201d and shadowy figures \u201cpeeking out from behind the tree.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If not for Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark\u2014Alvin Schwartz\u2019s infamous anthology series of folk stories that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[692,93,61,60,278,514],"class_list":["post-562190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}