With five tracks recorded remotely, before and during the pandemic, the Lisbon collective’s album was not born in the usual way. It didn’t begin with unrestrained improvisation to then be “tamed” in post-production; on the contrary, there was more improvisation during the mixing phase than in the initial sessions. Loops, percussion, bass, synthesizers, voices, guitars—all travelled through cyberspace, layering over one another without anyone feeling a lack of space or urgency. Singular circumstances, adverse to the communion and tension that once characterized the band’s sound, and even rock itself in other times, but which allowed for greater individual freedoms. Proof of this, Kill Screen is the best-sounding album Loosers have ever made, with details once overlooked by the band now given renewed attention.

Kill Screen is the album of a time when processing all the information and disinformation is no easy task, and when instead of debating politics we endlessly argue over whether the earth is flat, whether vaccines cause autism, whether racism and sexism exist—while living intangible realities, dependent on tech giants and framed by screens.