Here comes The Quarantined barreling out of Nashville like a half-rabid dog shaking off its muzzle, slamming down an album that feels less like a collection of songs and more like a confession booth set on fire. Aversion to Normalcy isn’t just a title—it’s a diagnosis. A warning label. A dare. The Quarantined have made a record that spits at the word “normal” as if it’s poison, that brittle American fantasy we keep duct-taping together while pretending we don’t hear the cracks.
Sean Martin—vocalist, guitarist, Iraq War veteran, reluctant prophet—delivers these songs like he’s exorcising ghosts through a busted megaphone. The man doesn’t sing so much as detonate. And you feel every shard. This isn’t performative trauma tourism; it’s lived-in, scarred-over truth, the kind of thing you only earn by stumbling through the hellmouth and coming back with teeth marks. No wonder TikTok can’t shut up about them. There’s no algorithm for sincerity that cuts this deep, but the world knows it when it hears it.
The album is built like a psychological autopsy. “Skeleton Chair” is the first cold slap—falling in love with chaos, worshipping it, letting it chew holes in your brain. The riffing grinds like a machine that forgot why it was built. Then “Shadow (on my back)” drags us into that claustrophobic trench where your own darkness starts using your spine as a punching bag. And “Nemesis (friend of mine)” is the sucker punch—because by then, the villain is you, the mirror, the memory that won’t stay buried. Forgiveness isn’t an answer here; it’s a fistfight.
Recorded at Blackbird Studios under the surgical hands of Nathan Yarborough—yes, the guy who’s worked with bands so heavy they warp gravity—Aversion to Normalcy sounds massive, towering, but never slick. Drummer Jerry Roe and bassist Luis Espalliat pound like a heart trying desperately not to flatline, while Zack Rapp’s lead guitar and violin lines carve through the mix with this beautiful, deranged elegance, like they’re trying to stitch the whole mess back together.
But here’s the thing: for all its fury, this album isn’t nihilism. It’s survival. It’s protest music for a world too exhausted for slogans. The Quarantined aren’t preaching revolution—they’re documenting the wreckage and daring you to crawl out with them.
Aversion to Normalcy is not here to comfort you. It’s here to wake you up.
And damn if it doesn’t.
Follow The Quarantined for any updates on their TikTok (@thequarantined), Facebook (@thequarantined), Instagram (@thequarantined), and Spotify (The Quarantined).
–Leslie Banks
