Being Dead knows how to make an entrance – within the first several seconds of EELS, the duo’s new record, the bright, hard-strummed guitar line on “Godzilla Rises” conjures cinematic immediacy, a creature emerging from the depths of the ocean in campy, freaky stop motion, fittingly so. Being Dead’s records are mosaics, technicolor incantations, each song its own self-contained little universe. And while the dreamlike EELS probes further into the depths of the duo Being Dead’s psyche, it is, most importantly, in the year of our lord 2024, a 16-track record that is genuinely unpredictable from one track to the next: a joyous and unexpected trip helmed by two true-blue freak bitch besties holed up in a lil’ house in the heart of Austin, Texas. alcon Bitch and Gumball are best friends. The Texas-based multi-instrumentalists love to make up elaborate tales of their first meeting: as chimney sweeps in the mid-1700s, as shoemakers in Middle England, as competing acrobats in a traveling circus. It’s a testament to their ever-playful attitude—one that pours over into their project, Being Dead, in which the band toes the line between jest and sincerity. The nurturing foundation of these platonic soulmates urges both Falcon Bitch and Gumball to be their full, freaky selves, prodding at the absurdity of the world with slick n’ dreamy strums, gritty percussion, and kaleidoscopic harmonies.