TR/ST Flex Serious Industrial-Pop Muscle On “Bicep”
Robert Alfons has returned with his grimly danceable solo project.
![TR/ST Flex Serious Industrial-Pop Muscle On “Bicep”](https://thefader-res.cloudinary.com/private_images/w_760,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best/DavidGomez-7411-mark_wwnaf8/robert-alfons-of-tr-st.jpg)
Too often, "summer song" is just shorthand for pop music for tropical mixed drinks and good vibes. If you'd rather not submit to the pressure of constant positivity, TR/ST's new single "Bicep" will bring some potentially much-needed grey and silver hues to your playlist. Robert Alfons's instincts for crafting shiny industrial pop — honed over the albums TRST and Joyland — are still as sharp as ever. Yet the overall design of "Bicep" is more overtly sinister than most of his previous two albums: the verses where Alfons mutters his incantations of discordant, metallic noises create a mood venomous enough to linger over the hook's explosive synthy turn-up.
"This song and much of the album was written in isolation in a farmhouse in rural Canada," Alfons told The FADER in an email. "It's about the journey of a figure — essentially a narcissist — fighting with ideas of impurity and worthlessness. It's about the struggle between accepting and resisting shame, as well as an expression of sexual fantasies."
Stream "Bicep" below. TR/ST's new album will drop in early 2018.