The Convenience Supercharge the Amps on Rocking LP » PopMatters

The Convenience’s Like Cartoon Vampire sees the New Orleans post-punk duo abandoning synthpop for a more primal rock sound.

Like Cartoon Vampires The Convenience Winspear 18 April 2025

Accelerator, the first album from New Orleans-based duo the Convenience – multi-instrumentalists Nick Corson and Duncan Troast – was released in 2021 and was a joyous celebration of drum machines, synths, and sugary hooks. While their commitment to this particular style seemed to deeply define the band, their press materials indicate otherwise, describing the record as “a pit stop into groovy synthpop, heavily inspired by their time in fellow Crescent City group Video Age, rather than a permanent move into their sonic dream home”.

Indeed, after that record‘s release, the Convenience hit the reset button, began poring over early records by the Fall and Glenn Branca, no-wave releases from ZE Records, funk, post-punk, and Krautrock, and came back swinging with Like Cartoon Vampires.

With an emphasis on guitars and a generally more aggressive sound, Like Cartoon Vampires is a generous slab of post-punk, with enough twists and turns to give the record a decidedly experimental feel. While “I Got Exactly What I Wanted” kicks things off with a chunky, mid-tempo groove and “Target Offer” starts like an XTC deep cut circa Black Sea, the latter song soon goes off the rails with an atonal, industrial-sounding tumble and crash, the sound of two ambitious musicians having a ball in the studio.

For every moment of Captain Beefheart-like herky-jerkiness (the jittery funk of “Dub Vultures” and the puzzle-like “2022”), there’s also no-frills post punk (the frenetic “That’s Why I Never Became a Dancer”), cosmopolitan instrumental weirdness (the delightfully odd, tropical “Café Style 4”), and artful set pieces (the no-wave tone poem “Pray’r”). The Convenience revel in confounding expectations.

There are moments when Corson and Troast are gleefully immersed in the resounding guitar riffs of Britpop, but that underrates their ultimate goal: to zig when they’re supposed to zag. Lack of predictability is one of their strong suits. Although there are moments when the Britpop sound emerges, it’s of the more adventurous variety, like on Radiohead‘s The Bends or Blur‘s self-titled album.

The sound of Like Cartoon Vampires covers vast ground, as oddball psychedelia soaks the baroque stylings of “Vanity Shapes” and the monotone, primal sounds of early punk are reminiscent of the Velvet Underground on the spoken word “Rats”. Above all, the Convenience have made a distinctly rousing and multifaceted rock and roll record which shows their vast and impressive influences.

“Fake the feeling till your flowers start to grow,” they sing on “Fake the Feeling”, the record’s final track. “Fake the feeling till you get in control.” Nothing fake about this band. The Convenience are an earnest, intrepid duo with a wide array of ground to cover and seemingly limitless powers.