10,000 Gecs by 100 Gecs Review

First Review! 100 Gecs second album

GECS SQUARED! 10,000 Gecs, 100 Gec’s second album is out. I spent about 23 minutes re-listening to the hyper pop duo's first album, 1000 Gecs earlier today, which was released in 2019 to impressive (and for the duo, unexpected) critical acclaim, including many Album of the Year claims. Since this first release, Laura Les and Dylan Brady have dropped solo projects, toured with Brockhampton, headlined a few Minecraft festivals, and collabed with a range of artists, from Linkin Park to Rico Nasty. After signing with Atlantic Records in 2020, the duo said they intended their first label album to be more mainstream and mature. They also said in a 2020 interview that they wanted to write the soundtrack for a Disney movie. How a hyper pop group whose music has often been described as digitized ear rape was going to adapt to these ambitions was anyone's guess. 10,000 Gecs doesn’t holistically do any of these things, but rather, gives track-by-track clues as to how they might do go down any one of these, or a million other, different paths.

The album opens with the Lucasfilm THX sound effect then drops into an exciting power riff. I’m sure this was the intended effect, but my reaction when I started the album was like “oh yea this is going to be a movie.” What comes next is rather a set of trailers for a bunch of different movies.  

They check the mainstream box early, but in the most ridiculous, post-ironic, classically Gec fashion. I would never have noticed this, but my friend pointed out you can hear the “Sicko Mode” kick about a minute into “Dumbest Girl Alive.” It’s an energetic first track with deceptive complexity. The lyrics are at once cocky, defiant, and -self-deprecating.

Listen for tie-fighter shooting sounds in “757” and watch this edit if you don’t know what sound I’m talking about.

“Hollywood Baby” is the most listenable track. It breaks up their characteristic digital chaos with catchy lyrics and pop-punk power chords, not dissimilar to some earlier tracks (“stupid horse" samples "Scotty Doesn't" Know by Lutra), just more refined.

The Gecs give us a tender moment on “Frogs on the Floor,” which they could put on their resume for their Disney movie application. They would probably have to give the frog a CapriSun instead of a beer and produce under a different name to secure the job, but I would watch a Gecs-scored Disney movie.

Just as you’re thinking “wow I am actually enjoying this,” cue “Billy Knows Jamie,” which follows the regrettable catchy “Doritos and Fritos” (one of the album’s three pre-released singles). “Billy Knows Jamie” melts together metals of the “nu” and “death” kind, which along with the pop-punk influences, checks the mature box. The Gecs have an obvious motif of subverting 2000s fringe rock genres in their songs, which in my opinion elevates them from other artists in the digital/hyper pop space.

The last three songs on the album are good and that’s all I am going to say about it because I am tired and I want to listen to other music. Next on my list: Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) by Yves Tumor. Probably.

Thanks that’s my first post!!! I want to get sooo much better at writing and listening to music, and share the love of sound with my frandsss and I would really like to feel like I have a purpose in my life. I’m smarter than I look, I’m the dumbest girl aliveeee