Video: Provoker, ‘It’s in My Head’

Kevin Bronson on December 8th, 2023

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Bay Area-bred, L.A.based Provoker color outside the lines of post-punk on their sophomore album “Demon Compass.” It’s almost as if that’s where the demons beckoned them, to a world of forbidding synths and jarring beats interrupted, occasionally, by the dulcet vocals of a balladeer.

It translates well to video, as the visuals for “It’s in My Head” (it sure is), “Debt Collector” (2 imposing but electric minutes) and “Freezing Alive” (a collaboration with Eyedress) attest. The album suffers some of the suffocated-by-reverb muddiness of Eyedress’s releases, but songs such as “It’s in My Head,” “Valley Ghoul” and “Little Ghost” reveal a sweet dynamic.

Released in October, “Demon Compass” is the second album in just over two years from the band co-founded by Christian Petty and Jonathon Lopez, following 2021’s “Body Jumper.”

At its best, “Demon Compass” lifts the listener from a plaintive world to somewhere decidedly less plain, though no less vulnerable to demons.

||| Watch: The videos for “It’s in My Head,” “Debt Collector” and “Freezing Alive”