Local Review: ULTRA GLOSS — The Dead Scene Scrolls

ULTRA GLOSS
The Dead Scene Scrolls
Handsome Tapes SLC
Street: 07.04.2025
ULTRA GLOSS = Yellow Card + Drab Majesty

ULTRA GLOSS’ debut The Dead Scene Scrolls feels like a band caught between two late-night radio stations — one blasting early-2000s pop-punk urgency, while the other is drifting through post-punk shadows and darkwave synth haze. Released through Handsome Tapes SLC, the album moves restlessly between those poles, never fully settling into a single identity. Bright hooks collide with colder atmospheres, with youthful energy brushes up against late-night introspection. More than anything, the record sounds like a band trying to figure out who it is while the music is already playing.

The opener “The Strangest Days” establishes the mood with darkwave synths and pleading vocals that lean toward melancholy rather than aggression. “Find A Way” follows with a cleaner, synth-driven groove that recalls modern post-punk revival acts, showing how atmosphere shapes the album’s early momentum. The opening stretch settles into a clear aesthetic — glossy textures, steady rhythms and a sense of motion that feels built for long drives after midnight.

That cinematic feeling carries into “Girl Of My Dreams,” which lands like a half-heard radio confession while passing streetlights at 3 a.m. “Affluenza” swings toward pop-punk energy, pairing a strong hook with lyrics about indulgence and privilege that read as intentionally provocative, even when they edge toward performance. “The Best Day” pivots again, leaning into an almost uplifting ’90s alt-rock sincerity that reframes the emotional tone established earlier.

As the record moves deeper into its darker material, the mood shifts. “Pointless” strips away the pop-punk gloss, locking into a tighter groove and colder emotional tone; its refrain about anger and not being able to go home again echoes the album’s broader sense of restlessness. The occasional self-aware lyric grounds the existential tone in something distinctly local, reinforcing the sense of place beneath the stylized atmosphere. Instrumental track “From Afar” pushes further into texture, channeling classic post-punk melancholy through a shoegaze haze and letting tone carry the emotional weight.

Where The Dead Scene Scrolls becomes most interesting is in the tension between sincerity and aesthetic. ULTRA GLOSS pulls from a wide lineage — early-2000s pop-punk, ’80s post-punk, darkwave and shoegaze — and the familiarity of those influences often shapes how the songs land. When the polish is brushed off, the material reveals a more vulnerable undercurrent, and the darker tracks shift the focus away from attitude and toward mood, suggesting a direction where the band’s instincts feel especially clear.

The second half revisits several songs through alternate takes and demos, which these versions function less as extras than reinterpretations. Like its namesake, The Dead Scene Scrolls plays like a collection of fragments — multiple versions of the same ideas preserved side by side rather than a single definitive statement. Hearing the songs reframed reveals how easily they move between pop-punk immediacy and post-punk introspection, reinforcing the sense of a band experimenting in real time.

Beneath the synth gloss and pop-punk urgency, the record reads as a document of young people trying to outrun self-awareness. As a debut, The Dead Scene Scrolls lands less as a finished declaration than an opening chapter — a snapshot of a band in motion, negotiating nostalgia, performance and sincerity at once. Even when the sounds feel familiar, the atmosphere holds together. And the darker post-punk moments — particularly “Pointless” and “From Afar” — suggest a direction that continues to sharpen as ULTRA GLOSS evolves. —Andrew Hart

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