Splinter’s latest album ‘Click. Swipe. Buy.’ shatters glass without saying sorry. The London trio blasts through the chaos with a punk record that screams in your face and doesn’t blink. From the first track, “Click. Swipe. Buy.”, you’re yanked through a hazy world of screenaddiction and superficial consumer culture. The guitars slice, the drums wallop, and the lyrics don’t hold back. “Get A Job” follows with no punches pulled on the empty, tryhard of influencer culture and modern grind. The raw vocals tear just as much as the lyrics want to burn. “Narcissist” follows with a heavy, dark energy zeroing in on self-serving behavior driven by dopamine and social likes. Sonically, the guitars are just as tight and punchy.
The first ballad in the setlist is a tale of much heavier inspiration from a closer place. “Fruit Machine Scum” is an anthemic, dirty rock song about a man who’s been unable to shake the demon that he made. Be it addiction, anger, or just plain bad luck, the way it’s written and played, you can feel the struggle in each chord. “Boy Racer” follows on as another fast-paced whippin’ that serves a slice of sarcastic rage at the reeking toxic masculinity of cocky pride in a modern punk banger. “Just Another Cliché” is quite literally just that; it rips every overdone social trend and synthetic rebel that populates the modern streets right off the block. It doesn’t preach. It doesn’t wag fingers. It just does what it says.
“Arms Race” is probably the angriest song on the album, which is saying something. It lands an elbow to the jaw in how corporations aim missiles at countries and weaponize war as just another supply and demand business transaction. It is, by no means, subtle. “Modern Recipe” wraps up the narrative of the click, swipe, buy culture we live in by ripping into the superficial swipe-culture of dating apps. It’s cold. It’s catchy. And it fits. Every song on ‘Click. Swipe. Buy.’ feels cohesive without being obvious or contrived. It’s more like the rough edges of broken glass stuck together after a well-earned fight. Loud, raw, and unfiltered.
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