Temps – ‘Party Gator Purgatory’ album review
It’s hard out here for the comedians-turned-musicians. There aren’t a lot of paths that you can take: most tend to keep one foot in both camps when they record songs (see Adam Sandler, Bo Burnham, or just about anyone else). When comedians aren’t trying to be funny, the material has to stand out as either being really good or really strange in order for it to totally escape the shadow of comedy. Bret McKenzie did a wonderful job of achieving the former with his 2022 LP Songs Without Jokes, and James Acaster is attempting to do the latter with his new album Party Gator Purgatory, released under the same Temps.
Being an American, and a rather ignorant and lazy one at that, I had no idea who Acaster was before listening to this album. And to have some interesting angle toward this album, I decided not to familiarise myself with any of his work beforehand. That might seem like unprepared journalism, but it really does seem important to separate the comedic persona of Acaster (which I have only now gotten familiar with) and the music he’s making with Temps.
Party Gator Purgatory is the sound of someone so determined to defy expectations that they end up making a random soup that never congeals. If you add every ingredient possible into your soup, it doesn’t end up tasting like much of anything at all. That’s how Party Gator Purgatory ends up: a mishmash of hip-hop, techno, jazz, electronica, noise, and experimentalism that is so anti-genre that it ends up being everything and nothing at the same time.
Acaster utilizes a number of guest stars and features throughout the album for vocals and additional spice. Unfortunately, they’re all tossed in with reckless abandon and a complete lack of direction. The sheer amount of unstoppable irritation that flows out of a song like ‘kept’ left me completely unable to get through it a second time. The conclusion of the album is the only place where things start to get a bit more coherent, and songs like ‘ificouldjust’, ‘bleedthetoxins’, and ‘slowreturn’ have enough of a central idea to them that they don’t completely spin out of control. They’re probably too long and meandering, but it shows that Acaster at least knows how to keep things together when he wants to.
Both stars here are for specific reasons: the first is for having the guts to do something like this in the first place. The second is for the ambition to strive beyond expectation. Even though I can’t personally make any sense out of what Party Gator Purgatory is, much less what Acaster is trying to say with it, there is enough noise and randomness thrown at the wall for it to occasionally stick. If you’re so inclined, elements of experimental jazz, tribal music, hip hop and electronica poke through and resemble something that’s relatable. 90 per cent of the time, that’s not the case, but that’s not to say it doesn’t happen every once in a while.
If the cacophony of buzzes, noises, ticks, blaring sonic blasts, snippets of poetry, and occasional musical melodies is your cup of tea with a heaping side serving of surrealism and purposeful obfuscation, then maybe you’ll find some solace and interest in Party Gator Purgatory. The fact is, most of the time I simply wanted to turn it off, with most songs inevitably reaching a point where I was begging the action to stop.
At its best, Party Gator Purgatory has shades of artists that do this way better: Black Midi, 100 Gecs, Madlib, and even Animal Collective. The idea that music doesn’t have to have a specific throughline to it is a quietly radical idea, but the execution has to be damn near flawless for anyone to pull it off. Acaster’s myriad of mayhem is certainly packed to the gills with left turns and bizarre moves, but his inability to pull it all together into anything cohesive dooms Party Gator Purgatory from the outset.
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