Review Summary: SPOTIFY RANDY SAX
Plastered across overpasses and strapped onto light posts, people across the Chicagoland area have been receiving a strange message: “Spotify Randy Sax”. Stuck in the gridlocked commute or walking down the street, curiosity has got the better of them. But even after diving into Randy’s discography, Chicagoan’s have still been left to wonder ‘Who really is Randy Sax’? I was hoping that Randy’s 5th full length release would finally be able to bring some light to this mystery. Unfortunately, after several listens through Mass Psychosis, I fear that I am even more lost.
With ‘Mass Psychosis’, Randy drops you further down the rabbit hole than ever before. Throughout the album, each song reveals a new zany character with the album quickly revealing its split personality theme. Remember when Eminem did that really cool accent thing on his 2009 Relapse album? Well we are all in luck! Randy triples down on the accents, further extenuating the various personalities portrayed. One moment Randy is Epstein’s cellmate, un-aliving him for extra cigs, the next moment he is naked in the basement having the boiled potato salted, next he is your leader, but he only kills when he’s drunk.
Randy dials back a bit more of the show-y guitar he has become known for in favor of electronics and a more lyrically focused journey. ‘Mass Psychosis’ takes the sarcastic and non-sensical lyricism and cranks it up several notches. Randy’s pop culture references to people like Sydney Sweeny and Kamala Harris and things like TikTok and Boeing inject a fair bit of comedy and vague social commentary that isn’t particularly on-the-nose. Silly chicks are on TikTok, shaking ass and selling flip flops. Pfizer hired Martha Stewart to tell you to get vaccinated. The album leaves us with the question of whether Randy is critical of the current state of affairs or is fully engrossed within it. The likely answer is both.
Mr. Sax’s DIY ethos, penchant for creative guerilla marketing and refusal to compromise in his art is admirable. Overall ‘Mass Psychosis’ hits more than it misses, but even its misses continue to build into the album’s general theme on unpredictability and variance. As Randy states himself on the one minute ripper ‘Just to Get it’: “It’s the contrast that keeps the party jumpin’”.
