P.E. : Oh!
P.E. was never meant to last this long. In fact, the project—formed by members of Pill and Eaters when their respective bands weren’t able to commit to a show they were each invited to play—very likely could have been a one-off experiment, an improvisational onstage event rather than a living, evolving entity. But one collaborative performance was enough to discover that P.E., their name simply a combination of the two bands’ initials, had legs. That spark of inspiration caught fire on the band’s 2020 debut album Person, a record that fused industrial-dance to no-wave punk and experimental electronics, simultaneously playful and jagged, joyful and abrasive.
After eight years, two albums and a handful of mixtapes of instrumental improvisations, P.E.’s members arrived at the decision to mothball the project. They describe the ending as less a “goodbye” than a “see you around,” an ellipsis rather than a period, but not without first offering a proper sendoff in the form of their third (and final?) full-length album, Oh! Yet ironically it’s the band’s most cohesive and fully formed set of songs, featuring fewer loose ends and brief sketches than their two prior, fantastic records in favor of a proper front-to-back set of pop songs.
Oh! is, nonetheless, a showcase for the band’s penchant toward chasing inspiration in the moment, but there are fewer visible strings and wires, each structure—save for maybe the vaporwave-y instrumental “Characters”—fully built out into something with a firmer foundation and a furnished interior. Part of the fun of a record like 2022’s The Leather Lemon was hearing a dubby interlude like the title track juxtaposed against a gorgeously crafted song such as “Tears in the Rain,” knowing that one could morph into the other with the proper push and focus. Here, moments like the bubbly dancepunk of the title track, the hypnotic groove of “(Do You Like) So So” and warped new wave of “Purple on Time” arrive as simply great pop songs given the proper finish and polish, as if to suggest the ongoing transformation they’d undergone in slow motion was finally complete.
And damned if there aren’t some wonderful pop songs on Oh!, whether assisted by Eleanor Friedberger on the accessibly understated “Color Coordinator,” ramping up the EBM synths for the dancefloor pulse of “Wandering Eye” or stretching out into gothic minimal-synth darkness on “All the Things That Feel Good.” That P.E. are walking away after delivering something that feels so complete is by all means satisfying, yet the new avenues they’ve opened here suggests the tank is nowhere near empty. Rather, it feels more like the end of a cycle, a brilliant glimmer of an idea taking form and shape and finally being made whole.
Label: Wharf Cat
Year: 2025
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