There was a period of the 2010s where psychedelic music was the flavor of the week in underground rock circles—when a bunch of punk-glancing longhairs balled out on effects pedals and stretched their chord progressions out into a big bleary wash. Last year, post-punk became the aesthetic du jour. Phil & the Tiles are a band from Melbourne, Australia with six members, not one of them named Phil. Their proper debut single is what happens when you merge two guitar music trend cycles at once: the sound of a really solid post-punk band adding a healthy splash of psychedelia.
“Nun’s Dream” opens wryly with clipped keyboard and guitar, but is quickly thrown off balance by the queasy heave of a stringed instrument and a rattle from a vibraslap. In droll, matter-of-fact voices, the band members narrate a nun’s repressed sexual urges—she’s gripped by temptation at night and wracked with Catholic guilt in the morning. “Only in my sleep I can truly feel free,” they chant, “but I don’t wanna burn in eternal hell.” Tight and loose elements balance each other out seamlessly, guitars becoming more frantic over a languid synthesizer melody. It’s rock music as organized and uneasy as a sister with a secret.