Suffering Jukebox

Nick's Pick of the Week is Prison's Downstate. It is available across all streaming platforms or you can purchase the record here https://prisonjam.bandcamp.com/album/downstate and my review can be read below.

Prison: Downstate (Drag City)

Released 31st January 2025

Prison’s debut album, 2023’s hulking Upstate, was a five song, ninety-minute slab of psych that was equally daunting and captivating. On its follow up, the imaginatively titled Downstate, the supergroup (of sorts) trim down the runtime but amp up the weirdness on a record that takes its cues from the likes of early Stooges, 13th Floor Elevators and Spacemen 3. 

Formed in 2017 by Paul Major of Endless Boogie and Matt Lilly and Sarim Al-Rawi from Liquor Store, Prison began as a live group that plied its trade around various venues in New York State. Their membership has been fluid over the years, with various individuals coming and going as they pleased, with Major, Lilly and Al-Rawi being the only constant and core members. On Downstate the group expands to an eight-piece, adding three additional guitarists (Sam Jayne, Marc Razo and Adam Reich), Matt Leibowitz on bass and Dave Smoota Smith on trombone.

Live, the group has a reputation for improvisation — thriving on spontaneity, intuition and a spaciousness that allows each member the room to make themselves heard. Many such groups struggle to portray these strengths on record and sound hemmed in or confined by the studio. Prison, however, sound as free and easy as ever, embracing the structure that comes with recording without limiting their creativity.

Millions Of Armies (Wipe ‘Em Out) kicks off the proceedings with squalls of feedback and a droning distorted riff. Slowly, the song takes shape while maintaining its inherent simplicity, the drumbeat barely changes and the track’s few lyrics are mostly variations of its title. All the while it holds your attention, threatening to shift gears, but stubbornly staying put. 

Downstate thrives on the tension of the slow burn and many of the album’s longer songs could easily be drawn out ad infinitum in a live setting. Traveling Lady (In Prison), Eyes For Keys and That’s My Noise all appear tailor made to be expanded upon on stage, although, to be fair, they may also have been constructed the other way around.

Psych music and jam bands can sometimes try the patience of the listener, with their endless noodling and penchant for self-indulgence; Grateful Dead anyone? Prison, however, possess a sense of self-awareness and a level of intuition severely lacking in many of their peers. Downstate combines the looseness of psychedelia with the incisiveness of punk; a mind expanding set of tunes that avoids getting lost among the weeds of its own creation.

Nick Stephan