Hi, everyone! Stamphony Uptano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Standing on the Corner album, Standing on the Corner II.

Yes, Standing on the Corner, a New York music outfit. They are back with their third full-length album, which is, yes, Standing on the Corner II for some reason. Released exactly ten years after their debut record, which came out September 11, 2016.

Now, the Brooklyn Ensemble is a truly difficult enterprise to define, with inconsistent output, an ever-shifting lineup, and an unpredictable array of influences being violently mashed together in pretty much everything they do, from soul, to funk, to punk, to jazz, to hip-hop, and electronic music, and everything in-between and out-between.

And believe it or not, Standing on the Corner II over here is the second time this record has been released this year, I think? With this new version here offering changes from the first that was dropped this past summer. And I guess there was even a version before that you could, allegedly, get a hold of if, back in 2025, you went out to Times Square and bought this record off of one of those Mickey Mouse suit street performer guys. Or that's at least what I've heard.

And look, if you think all of that, that sounds crazy, just wait until you hear the music on this final, commercially released version of the album. Which has been many, many, many, many, many, many years in the making, and above anything going into this record as far as influences and genres I could name, I think the most defining characteristic of Standing on the Corner II is their collective attitude, their sense of humor, and how the band sounds playing together.

Because what I think makes this album special is its unfiltered, oddball absurdism, and really the collective's ability to capture this true sense of creating outsider music, despite being commercially successful in their own right with a record deal on XL.

Rarely do you see bands with this much of an F-U attitude getting this kind of label play, maybe not since the days of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention with Freak Out! and We're Only in It for the Money. The Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band, and I suppose even Ween, to an extent.

I do want to stress, though, that Standing on the Corner, aesthetically and musically, does not sound exactly like those music acts. In fact, I think they borrow way too much from hip-hop and soul and Plunderphonics for me to make an exact one-to-one comparison in sound.

I mean, you could say there is almost like a Trout Mask Replica sort of discord to the loose, noisy, detuned, off-kilter instrumentation throughout these tracks. That's for sure, because numerous songs and performances on this thing, sound like they are just melting in real time.

Which is especially true of the opening track, which feels almost like a challenge at six minutes. This starter really feels like it was intended to ward off people who might not be prepared for what the rest of this album has to offer. I mean, it's not my favorite here, but I do get it in the sense that it's kind of like modern music's answer to the paralysis demon. It's really kind of putting you through the wringer of all of these super slow beats and patience-testing, musical passages. Wah-wah guitar leads, out-of-tune wheezing organs, and lumbering drums - these eerie croons on "Will it ever be the same?" And if that question is being asked of this tracklist's consistency, the answer is no; it will not ever be the same.

Because the following "The word" is a bit tighter by comparison, but still an odd listen in its own right, with these jazzy guitar arpeggios, mixed-fidelity drums, and haunting, distant lead vocals, but still at its core there feels like there's something that is kind of pulling from the LA beat music scene, or feels very akin to the solo work of Slauson Malone, despite the fact that he left the group quite long ago at this point. Also loving the surreal, psychedelic switch-up on the outro that feels almost like a distant relative, musically speaking, of a Jefferson Airplane song.

Meanwhile, "Man may not last" is like an experimental hip-hop cut of the highest order. Kind of feels like I'm listening to a young Mos Def rap over what is essentially the audio track of your FYP doom-scrolling at 2 am, with the instrumental, the sound effects, everything just constantly changing in the background. And despite the fact that the production is so off-putting and so disorienting. Still, the messaging of this track is pretty clear, as this song introduces one of the major themes of the record, and that's the end of the world, the self-destruction of humanity.

Of course, it is hilarious, but simultaneously very dark for this song to just be littered with all of these incredibly loud gun sound effects that are kind of calling over every piece of instrumentation in the mix. And I hope this is something you don't hate to hear, because these gun sound effects are peppered throughout a lot of points in the rest of the album. Also, with some of the pitch shifting on the vocals, I'm feeling like some big Quasimoto vibes coming off of this track, and there's a killer Styles P feature on the song as well that plays into the messaging of the song, too.

Again, despite the song being as chaotic as it is and being all over the place on the surface, there is a focused and thought-out message, sound, and aesthetic too. Rarely does something that sounds so insane and so off-the-wall clearly have a whole lot of forethought being put into it.

The band continues to keep things interesting, with a very solid run of tracks from here. "Evil man 9" is a piece of mutated, psychedelic soul. "Gimme my gun" is a funky organ rock number, which is demented as hell, and of course, also contains lots of gun sound effects. With a really goofy turnaround that I just love, because the band hams this moment in the song up so much.

The song "Mr. Postman, Wait" also keeps up these very kind of confusing, disorienting vibes, but simultaneously is a genuinely lovesick moment, despite the fact that some of the musical passages here feel like they were inspired by the musical transitions of many an old soap opera. There's a beautiful sincerity to it.

Then, believe it or not, in the tracklist there is a "Roll over Beethoven" cover, which is absolutely fucking batshit; I don't know how else to describe it. It's maybe the most fun two minutes of music I've heard in 2026. A gun-themed transition, and then after this we get hit with "Doesn't mean a thing," which is a very hard contrast from that previous cover, because this track is not only an absolutely psychotic jam, but it's maybe the darkest piece of commentary that the record holds. Really kind of pointing to a lack of standards and decency across governments, nations, humanity at large, saying that you could marry a child, you could drop a bomb on a kid, and it doesn't mean a thing, essentially. That the whole world just keeps turning, and society continues despite these man-made horrors.

And again, the band playing together, the quality of their performance feeling like it's just bursting at the seams, and reaching a kind of pinnacle toward the end that is harsh, in a way that is not too unlike a black metal song. The tone and ugliness of the music very much match the substance of what the band is trying to say here.

The track, "Secrets," is another highlight for me. It's kind of like their own weirdo take on a girl group number or some Brill Building pop. Although, to be honest, the reference points are still kind of hard to tell sometimes. It feels like everything that the band could be pulling from on this record is just burnt to a crisp in a house fire. I'm really trying to make heads or tails of an object or a piece of furniture, what it could have been at one point before it was fed into the inferno. And of course, the track ends off with more fucking gunshots coming out of nowhere. For me, not only is this track entertaining to experience, but a fun challenge is kind of imagining what notes and chords they could be playing in order to make this track sound normal.

Which I would say is also especially the case for the song "Baby! oh baby." Those blurting and just blaring synth horn solo leads sound another level of unhinged. As far as the final moments on the record are concerned, I do think they're a little hit or miss. The band doesn't fully stick the landing.

There are some low-key and eerie motifs that feel almost a little Residents-inspired, or at least run parallel to some of their trademark sounds. But with Standing on the Corner's own specific twist, like the spoken word poetry passages on "Sonia," which come by way of lauded American poet Sonia Sanchez. And of course, none other than Solange is in the mix on this track, too, which kind of goes to prove Standing on the Corner's reputation as artists' artist in a way. Now, as much as I appreciate these tracks for being the kind of tone shift that they are, I didn't find the band chemistry all that stunning on these ones.

And I think there's a bit of stagnation at play on the track "How deep is the sea," which features Danny Brown, too. Although I do like his lyrical contributions to this track, and he does kind of also play into this end-times theme of the album with this closing refrain of "we gon' party till the world end, " you kind of get a sense that that is very soon, even if the tone of this track does kick things off pretty quirky and tongue-in-cheek.

And after this, the song "Go 2 sleep pu$$y," despite its title, is one of the more serious and impressive, and I would say, dour moments on the record, with all of these very refined and fluttering and kind of surreal string sections. And it's actually a stunning ending to this insane album, which is just about an hour, a full hour of madness. An impressive hour of madness, actually, whose only major flaw is that it fails to maintain that same level of intrigue and intensity for its entire runtime.

Again, I think this happens more toward the end, where the band tries to downshift a little bit in terms of intensity with low-key numbers and collabs. But outside of that, this Standing on the Corner album is a mind-blowing listen.

And for anybody who's into left field and experimental music, I think this one is really gonna be a breath of fresh air. In an era where, musically and aesthetically, it feels like there is so much industry pressure to conform to musical modes and performances that are very straight-laced, that are very structured, that are very predictable.

Meanwhile, Standing on the Corner and everything they do, every warped, little off-kilter beat they deliver, kind of grabs you by the collar and forces you to pay attention to it and make sense of it, because it's so weird, it's so challenging, and it's so demanding that it doesn't allow you to just kind of settle down and consume it passively. And it's clear they take that mission, and they take that attitude seriously, while, at the same time, being as absurd and as ridiculous and occasionally as silly as they possibly can be.

I'm sure there will be some less curious listeners trying this album out, feeling like a joke is being played on them or something. But believe me when I say this album is no joke, which is why I'm feeling a decent eight on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Standing On The Corner. Forever.