ALBUM REVIEW: Ron Gallo – Foreground Music

Kill Rock Stars

Released: 03.03.23

Ron Gallo released three albums on New West Records before joining Kill Rock Stars in 2022. He sounds harsher and more abrasively disillusioned these days. The guitars are louder, fuzzier and much faster too. There is a sentiment of urgency. Foreground Music chronicles the many crises of neoliberalism – solitude in the age of hyperconnectivity. Gallo sees it all so clearly. Yet there is humaneness beneath the sarcasm too – a guarded hopefulness shining here and there. I rather like the fact that he should be so erratically angry. Perhaps it’s the only way to be. Anger alone doesn’t make a good song – but Foreground Music contains a handful of minor hits, in the vein of early Beck and other punk collagists.