If you’re the kind of person who likes your music polite, pretty, and playing quietly in the background, you can stop reading right now. Because Signal Bleach didn’t make Worthless Milk for you. Hell, they probably didn’t even make it for anyone. That’s what makes it so good.
Worthless Milk, the debut album from Los Angeles’s own sonic wrecking crew, is one of the most aggressively unapologetic records I’ve heard in years. Out now, it’s nine tracks of absolute chaos stitched together with precision and intention. You can hear echoes of Death Grips, Skinny Puppy, maybe a bit of Atari Teenage Riot if you squint your ears, but it’s not just homage. It’s its own twisted little universe.
The first thing you notice when pressing play is that nothing about this record is asking permission. There’s no warm-up. No friendly intro. It’s like getting shoved through a glass door into a basement rave that’s already on fire. You’re either in or you’re not. Signal Bleach doesn’t care either way.
Formed in 2021, the trio of Andrew Hall, Casey Garcia, and David Teget spent years experimenting with electronic gear, patching together bits of industrial noise, punk ethos, and breakcore rhythms into something that feels like a tech meltdown soundtracked by an existential crisis. It’s violent and messy and deliberate. And it works.
What I love most about “Worthless Milk” is how purposefully unpredictable it is. The moment you think you’ve got the structure down, it crumbles and morphs into something even nastier. Vocals distort into madness, synths screech like sirens in a warzone, beats trip over themselves only to punch you harder on the next drop. It’s electronic music made by people who clearly grew up listening to hardcore records in dark basements and got bored with the rules.
There’s something weirdly addictive in the way Signal Bleach puts it all together. There’s chaos, but it’s choreographed. Every sound has a place, even when it feels like the whole thing is about to combust.
Lyrically, don’t expect neat little narratives or catchy hooks. Expect rage. Expect paranoia. Expect digital-era dread spat through a broken megaphone. If “No Gods, No Masters” was the rallying cry of the last generation, this album is the jaded reply. It’s glitchy protest music for the age of misinformation. It’s not trying to inspire you. It’s trying to shake you awake.
What’s most impressive is that this isn’t just noise for noise’s sake. Underneath the surface-level brutality is a level of craftsmanship that’s hard to ignore. These guys know exactly what they’re doing. The production is meticulous. The transitions between tracks are surgical. Even the moments that feel like total collapse are engineered to hit at the right time, the right frequency, the right amount of discomfort.
This isn’t the kind of album that’s going to get love on mainstream radio, and that’s fine. It’s too smart and too weird for that. “Worthless Milk” is for the freaks, the basement kids, the over-caffeinated weirdos who think in static and dream in noise. It’s not interested in being liked. It’s interested in being real. And in that mission, Signal Bleach has absolutely succeeded.
So if you’re ready to dive headfirst into something raw and unfiltered, clear an hour and play this thing loud. Let it rattle your teeth and maybe your worldview a little too. It’s not music for everyone, but for the people it is for, it’s going to hit like nothing else.
