Military Genius

Military Genius

Scarred for Life

Unheard Of Hope

Military Genius (aka songwriter/producer Bryce Cloghesy) delivers the follow-up to his atmospheric 2020 debut Deep Web. Scarred For Life is a genre-flexing mix of bass-heavy R&B, spaced dub, and jazz that is newly grounded within a more traditional rock framework and centered on lyricism. Lead single “Darkest Hour” reflects a head first journey into the unknown. The starting point for Scarred For Life—written, recorded, engineered, and produced by Cloghesy—was to try and make sense of ‘the toll taken by a life lived, and the complex beauty of a reality that can never be repeated or replicated.’ Cloghesy faced his creative crosswords by embracing raw acoustic sounds and a ‘human-first’ approach to the recording process. Ideas were formulated and initially recorded onto cassette tape with minimal editing. Blemishes and artifacts were welcomed, adding to the record’s realism and personal character. Thematically, the album can be approached on a number of planes. The title refers to a gruesome episode in his life in 2012, when he had a near-death experience after falling through a window. Add a debilitating series of panic attacks and depressive episodes to the charge sheet—followed by several significant life changes like a move from Canada to California, getting married, and becoming a father—and it’s clear the record has a lot of heavy lifting to do. The Mojave Desert is maybe the key to the record's soul. Cloghesy has been living in Joshua Tree since 2023, shortly after the birth of his son. A lot of the music feels...