Monster Of The Week is the debut album by Leeds based Tulpa who are Josie Kirk, Daniel Hyndman, Myles Kirk and Mike Ainsley, they are based in Leeds. They recorded the album at Lamigo Bay in the Highlands of Scotland with Jamie Lockhart in the producer's chair.
The album opens with Theme that should work over the intro to the TV show this could so easily be based on, even if most weeks these days it would be the same 4 or 5 politicians faces in various scenarios of being awful monsters, over this jangling indie pop instrumental.
Transfixed Gaze is a Darling Buds style jangly indie pop love song with some nice musical twists as the guitars vary in intensity, similar to how the passion waxes and wanes at the transience of modern love, attempting to sustain relationships without swiping the wrong way too often.
Psyops has them wondering how you have become so sad and they can't figure out how to cheer you up again, maybe a life spent under the watchful eye of your mobile phone, computer and all those cctv cameras have all become too much, even if they can't figure out how in the hell you managed to fall in love, amidst all the sorrow of modern living, while evoking Orange Juice.
Pyro fires off salvoes of intense guitars between the urgent vocals, wondering if they should book you a doctor's appointment, you seem so in need of some sort of help to find a way out of the inferno consuming you.
Let's Make A Tulpa is an Instruction manual for making your own Tulpa or monster, just what will you direct your Tulpa to do once it's been manifested, changing your destiny one buzzing indie anthem at a time, getting so high that Tulpa will be as real as the demonic guitar flanging away.
Monster Of The week the title track has a Dinosaur Jnr or Pavement style slacker rock sound, with laconic vocals accusing you of being the Monster of the week, so that means your worse than Trump or Putin.
Stick Figure Boy is a lanky streak that comes alive for the perfect daydream fantasy, whisking Josie off to a glorious world of love and jangly guitars.
You Live In A Reverie sounds like they have read my mind and can see how I am constantly in a reverie, looking back at the old days, back when Indie bands that sounded this good would be out on tour playing at colleges and uni's all over the place with a huge following, only grumbling slightly at being told they are the new Sundays or whatever the reverie is meant to be about.
Amateur Hour is not about the selection process for the current US government, but a slow cool indie song that has a bit of a Shonen Knife influence for this guy that needs professional help to learn how to kiss you properly.
Raw Nerve sounds like 1986 indie madness to me, the frantic guitars and odd noises with touches of feedback, desultory vocals and manic panic noise shifts hits a Raw Nerve or two, making this freak out all over the place.
Who's Side Are You On one of the main questions of 2025, they may mean it differently to how I take it, but please play this to all of our politicians while asking them why they behave so intolerably all the time, making alliances with the most awful pieces of trash on a regular basis, while this slacker anthem needs some good answers, that doesn't burst your bubble too completely that you have to dig out Kevin Coyne's Bursting Bubbles album again, before the distorted guitar melt down brings the album to its close.
Find out more at https://tulparockband.bandcamp.com/album/monster-of-the-week https://www.facebook.com/tulparockband https://linktr.ee/tulparockband
