PABST – This Is Normal Now
Release Date: 28th November 2025
Label: Alcopop! Records
Order
Genre: Hyper Rock, Alt Rock, Indie, Grunge.
FFO: Plaiins, The Dirty Nil, Dinosaur Pile Up.
Review By: Paul Franklin
During the studio sessions for the new album, German trio PABST have coined their own genre – ‘Hyper-Rock’.
What is Hyper-Rock? The band see it as both a mirror of, and a reaction to, the development of the Gen Z hyperpop movement spearheaded by Charli XCX and Sophie.
“Suddenly everything that featured synths or autotune was being labeled that,” explains drummer Tore Knipping. “We also have parts with synths and autotune—hyperrock, in other words”.
Still not sure? Then imagine the best 90s Indie alt rock/pop songs sprinkled with some ‘bleeps and bloops’ and then hooked up to a fuzz generator with the dial turned up to 11.
The songs themselves, opening duo Limbo No.5 and Cool Car, Stupid Decisions being the perfect example, are on initial listen are bright and breezy pop numbers that are catchier than a verruca in a swimming pool foot bath. However, there is a bleaker dystopian message underpinning the album. A recognition that in this modern world of Trump rhetoric, war propaganda and the increasing incursion of AI has ground down our resistance to the point of fatigue, and acceptance that this is the new normal. Although the band joke that ‘the album’s title could also just as easily refer to your back hurting all the time now, because you’ve gotten older…’
If you grew up with those 90s bands, then there will be a warm hit of nostalgia when you listen to this album. Not in a way that PABST could be accused of being copycats, as they have twisted and subverted that sound to meet their own agenda. The result is 13 tracks that splendidly mix fuzz, grunge and irony soaked indie to perfection.
The world may be going to hell, but if Hyper-Rock is what is normal now, hell ain’t a bad place to be.
(4.5 / 5)
