Washing Machina turn inner turmoil into a blazing alt-rock triumph on 'Before My Mind Wakes Up'

Washing Machina waste no time easing us into 'Before My Mind Wakes Up'. Their second album arrives in a rush of distorted guitars, irresistible melodies and nervous energy, immediately establishing the Stockholm four-piece as a band ready to push every part of their sound further.

Where debut album 'The Spontaneous Splendid' examined the disorientation of life from the outside, this follow-up dives directly into the mind. Its songs confront destructive habits, obsessive thought patterns and the private emotional damage that can quietly become routine. Yet for all its difficult subject matter, the record never feels weighed down.

Opening track ‘My Bones’ is a bruising examination of the compulsions people return to even when they understand the damage being caused. Singer Sara Engström describes the subject as a form of mental self-harm, and the song refuses to soften that idea. It gives the cycle weight, melody and an emotional honesty that makes it difficult to ignore.

While ‘Debbie Lost Her Mind’ stands out as a brilliant example of the band’s growing command. Disorienting, urgent and instantly memorable, it moves as though trying to outrun its own instability. The intensity rises even further on ‘The Top’. It captures the exhilaration and terror of crossing a personal boundary, transforming emotional collapse into one of the album’s most electrifying moments.

What makes 'Before My Mind Wakes Up' so compelling is that the experimentation never comes at the expense of the songs themselves. Washing Machina can make guitars sound unstable, jagged and confrontational, but they also know exactly when to deliver a chorus that stays lodged in the mind.

This is a significant leap forward from an already promising band. The melodies are stronger, the noise is bolder and the emotional stakes feel higher at every turn. But rather than simply expanding their debut’s sound, Washing Machina have sharpened it into something far more distinctive and powerful.

'Before My Mind Wakes Up' is messy, melodic and a record that turns self-destruction, anxiety and repetition into some of the most exciting alternative rock the band have made so far.