Sincere Engineer - Bless My Psyche
Sincere Engineer is the band for everyone that’s ever felt like quitting but gets through it anyway. It’s for everyone that has had big dreams lead to feeling disillusioned and cynical, yet find the few hours to play in the sunlight. Bless My Psyche is a collection of vignettes about everyday failures, insecurity, anxiety, and the prosaic things we do to push forward.
Recorded in their hometown of Chicago, with long-time collaborator/producer, Matt Jordan, Bless My Psyche is the follow up to 2017’s Rhombithian, and continues to juxtapose hopeful expectations and the disappointment of reality through wry and witty lyrics and catchy indie punk. “I think my music is relatable and I hope it makes people feel like they’re not alone” shares singer, Deanna Belos, “I do it because it’s fun and I don’t want to do anything else.”
Bless My Psyche is a dynamic journey into Belos’ psyche, one that is in a constant battle between the desire to be motivated to succeed, the daily exhaustion of working life, and the crushing weight of the anxiety of it all. “Trust Me” finds Belos digging her own grave in a cycle of the same mistakes in a defiant punk anthem that serves as the “grand introduction” to the album. “Recluse In The Making” forlornly captures the inevitable self-sabotage as Belos sings, “Ain’t it just like me to let my life pass me by, to never once even try.”
However, in classic Sincere Engineer fashion, this isn’t a depressing album, it just talks about depression. Bless My Psyche is chock-full of songs about drunken debauchery and wild nights that feed the soul, even if it the “hurricane of misery” comes full force in the morning. Tracks like the driving indie anthem “Coming In Last” remains self-deprecating, yet hopeful and wistful for the future. While “Dragged Across The Finish Line” is half about not letting the successes of others demotivate you, and half about recognizing that sometimes you need to help your friends and sometimes they need to help you.
With songs meant to be sung loudly in a sweat-laden, crowded venue, Sincere Engineer has crafted an album for an entire community to hold onto. Bless your psyche.
Sincere Engineer is Deanna Belos