Following 2022's Rough Dimension LP, Noel Skum - aka Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty - made the radical leap of expanding his psychedelic post-punk vehicle VR SEX into a fully collaborative five-piece band.

To christen the new group's camaraderie, they booked a block of studio time in Glassell Park, swapped skeletal iPhone demos, and "did that classic thing of a band making the exact record they want without any interference." Working 12-hour days, they banged out the basics in a week, then tracked the rest over a month, fine-tuning it with flourishes, FX, and amplifier experiments.

Hard Copy is the result - 10 tracks of sneering psychedelic punk streaked with Chrome-damaged freak-outs and snotty power pop harmonies chronicling sex doll love affairs and glue-sniffing fatales.

Mixed by guitarist Mike Kriebel - an accomplished engineer with dozens of credits across the punk, goth, and garage underground - the album is dense, rich, and spatial, spurred by Clinco's muse of "reckless abandon." Shadows of Chrome, Stickmen With Rayguns, Japanese psych, and loudquiet-loud grunge anthems flicker here and there, but ultimately VR SEX's mode is more sardonic and saturated, oscillating between ripped leather riffing and space echo meltdowns.