Occasional Stereogum contributor Keegan Bradford plays guitar in Camp Trash, a Florida band that makes extremely catchy and energetic music. Camp Trash are an emo band and a power-pop band at the same time, and their songs have a way of achieving ridiculous levels of melodic liftoff. Honestly, I'm a little embarrassed to be gushing over another music writer's band, but here we are. Camp Trash's full-length debut The Long Way, The Slow Way came out in 2022, and they released a split EP with Dowse earlier this year. Now, we're about to get a whole new Camp Trash album, and I bet it'll be really good.
On Halloween, Camp Trash will release their new concept LP Two Hundred Thousand Dollars. James Palko of Taking Meds produced the album, and it features new Camp Trash drummer Kyle Meggison, formerly of Worst Party Ever. The band recorded this one in a five-day stretch, sleeping on air mattresses in the studio. Here's how the Bandcamp description lays out the lyrical idea at work here:
The new Camp Trash album, Two Hundred Thousand Dollars, is a loosely connected collection of stories that follow hapless con men, gamblers, low level mobsters, and cult members who dream of something bigger and come up with foolproof plots to get there, but find the journey to be more complicated than they imagined. Each of their stories revolves around $200,000: getting $200,000, losing $200,000, owing $200,000 to some very important people with some very powerful friends. When they say in your life flashes before your eyes, they mean your past. What really happens is you see your future: stretched out, solid, and strung up like a banner in front of you. And in that slowed down moment, you can see what comes next; you can see all the way to the end, all the way to the bottom. These songs take place in that moment.
That sounds like some Hold Steady shit! I am into it! Last month, the band released their single "Signal Them In," and that's on the album. So is their new song, a dizzy guitar-crunch rager called "Between The X's." Below, check out that song and the Two Hundred Thousand Dollars tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Year Of The Plan"
02 "Signal Them In"
03 "Between The X's"
04 "No Vision"
05 "Alibi"
06 "Bigger Better Drug"
07 "Believer Now/Rosebowl '98"
08 "Cousin Zach (Born Lucky)"
09 "Biker Bar"
10 "Heaven Or Wisconsin"
Two Hundred Thousand Dollars is out 10/31 on Count Your Lucky Stars Records.
