Shatter the Fantasy, by Aaron Troyer

Shatter the Fantasy

by Aaron Troyer

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Full Digital Discography

32

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Whippets, TIT, Shatter the Fantasy, Light Pollution, I & II, II, Love & Magik, Whippets EP, and 24 more. , and , .

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1.	The Burning End 04:09	buy track
2.	Moonlight Painter 04:00	buy track
3.	Prussian Green 04:17	buy track
4.	Step into the System 04:26	buy track
5.	Letdown 02:48	buy track
6.	Carousel 04:16	buy track
7.	Citizen Protector 03:10	buy track
8.	Discount Trips to Heaven 03:25	buy track
9.	Nuclear Vista 03:07	buy track

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"Citizen Protector" video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd-BlD0fEbY

Aaron Troyer "Shatter the Fantasy" - NC 60 - Limited to 100 pro-duplicated cassettes.

“I wanna write a song where the rain can hide tears that I may never cry, just to say I felt alive” – Moonlight Painter

Please don’t call Aaron Troyer a “journeyman.” His songwriting does seem to exist in a sort of static transience and his catalog is quite prolific, but instead of harping on his own autobiography, he seems to inhabit an imagined world of characters who have their own collection of memories and reflections – especially on his latest opus, Shatter the Fantasy, the seventh album under his own name.

Like his visual art, the songs on Shatter the Fantasy project as stained-glass abstractions, slightly dusted, full of colors that seem muted but tend to peek through when appropriate. Of course it would be false to say that the album is a departure. You can still hear the sharp punk angles and prickly pop that defined his last fifteen years of work, either in his first band, Day Creeper, or on my personal favorite of Troyer’s solo triumphs, 2016’s Faith in the Unknown. There’s a caveman stomp and brainy logic in “Step Into the System,” and “Letdown” might just be the finest sing-a-long the man has written, but for most of Shatter the Fantasy’s lean thirty-four minutes, lenticular snapshots of Troyer’s discography flutter to the fore and back behind the heavy curtain of this warm, welcomed, new sound.

After moving to Austin in 2020, Troyer was driven to make a full-band effort and enlisted Caleb Harmon to play drums and Matthew Collechi to play bass. Not long after, Dusty White (a Columbus wizard and friend of Troyer) grabbed a second guitar and brought his infinite gear wisdom to the band and into the studio to complement this batch of songs, along with Collechi, an experienced engineer in his own right. Though the quartet only played one solitary show together, the dynamism that was tracked on Shatter the Fantasy is nothing short of prismatic, worn and weathered in the best way possible, an old friend returning to town to sit and tell stories around a never-ending campfire.

“The Burning End” starts the proceedings, laying a firm foundation for the album’s “Velvets meets Zuma” vibes. There are riffs as vast as Troyer’s adopted Texas sky, melodies that sparkle like shiny gems in the dark. It’s a vision. Not one of despondency or indifference or dead ends, but a kind of outward hope, shouting it to the ether, just knowing that what we’ve all been through these last couple of years can be shed like snakeskin.

That lyric up above, from the joyous “Moonlight Painter,” really drives that sentiment home. There are countless moments on Shatter the Fantasy when Troyer’s songwriting “feels alive.”
The woozy, weepy, phased-out cowboy ballad, “Carousel,” certainly “basks in the afterglow.” The quick and rambling “Citizen Protector,” tackles Rumours and outlaw country with equal aplomb. White sneaks in some big dumb classic rock tricks – like the Mutt Lange-esque, Def Leppard, one-note arpeggios shimmering in the verses of the triumphant “Letdown” but it works. Always inherent in Troyer’s songs is a little Feelies jangle, some Dylan bramble, a Stonesy swagger, pins and needles quirk that recalls the Soft Boys – yet in this bespoke outfit of twang (I couldn’t imagine Troyer in a Nudie suit) and Southern charm, he’s making a statement. Just listen to that yearning solo that ends “Discount Trip to Heaven.”

“Nuclear Vista” is a perfect sunrise-as-finale to a record that really shuffles under moonlight for most of its entirety. Large swaths of reverb scorch the sky, our hero, shielding his eyes from the blinding light, ending his journey atop a dune in the distant desert. The vista is nuclear but, damn if it isn’t beautiful to look at.

Kevin J. Elliott
August 28th, 2023

credits

released October 6, 2023

Aaron Troyer: Vocals, Guitar, Artwork
Caleb Harmon: Drums, Percussion
Matthew Collechi: Bass, Engineering, Mixing
Dustin White: Guitar, Percussion, Engineering

Recorded in 2022-2023 at the Simple Pleasure Palace in Austin, TX

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