Listening to Australian punk band 3D & the Holograms is like thumbing through a comic book killing spree. The carnage is splashy and colorful, an addictive thrill that keeps you turning the page. The Sydney miscreants are fronted by the scuzz-voiced Billy Reilly of Research Reactor Corporation. Ishka Teevee, who records as Tee Vee Repairman and Satanic Togas, handles bass, lead guitar, and synths. JJ Gobington, from Olympia, Washington’s the Gobs, fills in on drums and rhythm guitar. On their self-titled debut, 3D & the Holograms thrash through 12 fast and nasty songs in under 15 minutes, leaving a trail of busted drumsticks and frayed power cables in their wake.
3D & the Holograms formed as a way to combat the idle months of the 2020 lockdown. Reilly was creatively restless and unable to play live with his other bands—Studs, Mainframe, and the Motorheads. So he tapped Gobington to email him guitar and drum tracks that he later fleshed out with Teevee in Sydney. The resulting debut is scrawled with distortion and laser beam guitar, and it’s driven by Reilly’s gristly howl. Each clipped track—none of which reaches the two-minute mark—dispatches grim reports from a dystopian future.
Mostly, Reilly is shouting about technology turning on its master, whether it’s a 3D printer that spits out humanoids (“Machine”) or a murderous AI entity (“Projection”). On “VR Execution,” he imagines a simulation that lets you witness your own death. “Strap you in the chair/Administer the shot,” he croaks. “Screening your own death/Into your frontal lobe.” The band makes these rants about the distant future sound ripped from vintage 7"s: Teevee treats his synthesizer like an electric organ, emitting a shredding hook that glows like plutonium. It recalls the mad-scientist energy of ’70s electro-punks the Screamers or a rabid, street urchin strain of early Devo.
Despite his phlegmy sneer, Reilly is more of an apocalyptic prankster than a politico crust punk, and he prioritizes a sense of humor across his many bands. “It’s like we’re a cartoon or like Toxic Avenger,” he told an interviewer around the time 3D & the Holograms were forming. “We’re like a goofy the-world-is-ending-but-who-cares thing.” He was talking specifically about Research Reactor Corp., but the same themes apply for 3D: wasteoid punks stomping around in combat boots, dodging killer cyborgs Terminator-style. But thanks to his unintelligible delivery—unless you can scrounge up a lyric sheet—you’ll have to enjoy Reilly’s jokes from a glance at the tracklist (see: “Sack of Meat” and “Buried in Leather”).
You might not know exactly what you’re saying, but Reilly’s lyrics are still built to bark along to. On “Asshole Hotline,” he plays an irate phone operator, listing off numbers like “1-800 fuck off” and “1-55 eat my shit” as Teevee whips up a synth line fit to guide a soccer stadium chant. On “C4,” the singer devises his own dramatic end, snarling over trash-can-lid snares. “Dynamite squeezed in my ass/I’m going out with a blast,” he foretells. A sample of glass smashing in the background only underlines the band’s cartoonish shtick—like a “POW” or “KABOOM” scribbled in red block letters. 3D & the Holograms might be mapping out their very own techno dystopia, but it’s inked in Day-Glo and dotted with only the most essential information—like where to get pissed and pogo as as the world crumbles around you.
