All movement – and consequently, a lot of art – is a product of tension and release. In 2017, when multi-instrumentalists Nina Cates and Zack James decided to begin writing songs together, it was an exercise to see whether they could collaborate and anyone would be interested in anything they came up with. Now, Robber Robber’s debut album, Wild Guess, feels more like an exercise in tension and release than an indie record. For all of its nods to its post-punk predecessors and the eclectic Burlington, VT music scene that fed into it, the album feels more like an attempt to translate imagery into sound, communicating all the shades of light and dark you could visualize – and it’s better for that reason.

Everything is driven by sheer curiosity and loose, if any, creative parameters, the band says. A person’s twenties is guaranteed to be a tumultuous time in their life anyway, regardless of who they are or what they do, but the members of Robber Robber found themselves in a world that’s maybe never been more chaotic or difficult to move through. It’s a chaos that’s evident in what they create, even if it’s only the obstacle they’re reacting to. In even their most polarizing musical moments, you get the sense that these are gut reactions being expressed, that truth is the grist of the overflow.