Since the release of their debut EP, Professional Systems Overload, in 2001, and their debut album, System 2, the following year, the noise rock project Microwaves have been a consistent fixture in the Pittsburgh music scene, thanks to the tenacity of guitarist and vocalist David Kuzy and drummer John Roman.

“I don’t think we have anything else to do,” John tells Post-Burnout of their longevity. Concurring with John’s point, David adds, “Right now, I think we’re both content to keep doing it, and so is Zach, who’s playing with us right now. But, you know, maybe that changes. Who knows? We’re old, but not that old. Maybe I’ll feel different in ten years.”

The Zach that David refers to is Zach Moore; the latest in a series of bassists who have played with Microwaves in the last twenty-five years. “We keep losing bass players, so we get to start over every couple of years, so it’s never boring,” David adds as a reason for keeping the band afloat.

Zach makes his recorded debut with Microwaves on Temporal Shifter, their eighth studio album, which was released today. The album’s ten tracks of densely compacted tension and unease show that the band have not lost an ounce of their droll perturbation.

Beyond the addition of Zach, the band feel that a myriad of factors – from production, technological advances, their ever-advancing skills, and the time the album was conceived – are what make it stand out in their discography.

“Each album is kind of just a snapshot of where we were at that time,” John says of their releases. “The music that we’re making is, lyrically, how we’re interpreting the world around us at that time. We probably couldn’t have made our current album even six years ago, for instance.”

“We don’t really conceive a concept for the album before we start writing songs,” adds David. “But, once we’re halfway to two-thirds of the way through having enough songs for a record, the last few might get nudged by what we did with the rest of them.

“It seems like whenever we do make a record, there’s always one or two songs that are written really close to before we recorded it. Like, there’s two songs on this new record – the last song [“A Plane Made of Bricks”] and the third-from-the-last song [“Let Them Eat Space”] – they were written pretty late.

“Were they a reaction to the rest of it? I don’t know. But they’re kind of similar, but also a bit different, than some of the rest of it. They’re shorter and more to the point.”

David and John take a casual approach to music. It’s art; not a cure for cancer. This freedom has allowed the band to exist for a quarter of a century, and they are certainly not lacking for material; envisioning the finality of death as being the sole punctuation on their project.

“I sort of have a backlog of songs that aren’t done, so if we run out of stuff to work on, I’ve got more stuff to work on,” wraps David. “So, I imagine there will always be another record on the way. Sooner or later, we’ll drop dead, and that won’t happen, I guess, but, for now, there’s always another record on the way.”

Microwaves’ latest album, Temporal Shifter, is out now. You can purchase a copy here. You can keep up with the band through their Bandcamp profile.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.