Sub Pop – 1st March 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
When grunge exploded and was endlessly touted as ‘the voice of a generation’, there was considerable truth in this: as a teen in the early and mid-90s, it felt like a moment in time which was fresh and exciting. After years of polished pop and hip-hop becoming the dominant forms, a breakthrough of music so raw and visceral felt like a tidal wave, crashing through the airwaves and obliterating the endless sameness, while articulating the angst and disaffection that filled the stagnant air at the time. Sub Pop unquestionably played a significant part in bringing these vital bands to the world – the label equivalent of a grass-roots venue putting out records by bands they believed in – and that belief proved to be justified. Even the ones who didn’t go full Nirvana or Hole, like Mudhoney and Tad, were culturally significant and remain so.
Every generation seeks music which speaks both to, and for it, in some way or another. Which brings us, smoothly, to Pissed Jeans. A racketous grunge band on Sub Pop who speak to, and for… well, I sort of feel an audience who are growing up – by which I mean older and more disillusioned all the time – with them. If grunge was initially supposed to be the voice of working class, blue-collar, flannel-shirt and knackered up jeans wearing folks and articulating the angst of the stuck in small town in menial dayjobs, then Pissed Jeans brought a post-millennial, global capitalist, tertiary industry aspect to it. Their appeal has always been their ordinariness: ordinary guys with ordinary office dayjobs, writing songs about the shitness of ordinary life in ordinary office dayjobs, office politics, and generally mundane things that really grind your gears. We love them because when they finally get enough time out of the office to make music, it’s real, and it’s relatable, venting all the frustration and anger that an accumulation of small niggles over the course of a crap day at the office can build to a desire to shout and kick stuff.
Pissed Jeans have always been, if not heart-on-sleeve, a band whose separation between life and art had been fine at most. As the awkwardness and ennui of disaffected youth has faded, so it’s given way to reflections on the tribulations of responsibility and the cloud which descends with the realisation that time is passing – and at an ever-accelerating pace – and what have you got to show for it? You’re still grinding away at the dayjob, you’ve maybe made it to be a call centre team leader or something equally mundane and FUCK!
As much as they’re a band who don’t appear to take themselves too serious, it’s also clear that they’re serious about what they do: they need this outlet, this escape. And so while it’s tempting to focus on Matt Korvette as the lyricist and focal point, their work is very much a collective thing. They all went to school together, and have grown together, and you can imagine them all collectively ad individually navigating arranging band practices around work, wives, and so on. Why Love Now was a dark exploration of office politics and crass chauvinism and the fact that men suck, and attempting to navigate these times as average white men – because when you see average white men posting online in response to the latest grim revelation that it’s ‘not all men’ your heart sinks because it’s clear it’s most men at some time and we all need to do better – isn’t easy when you recognise that you are part of the problem and there’s no escaping it. Korvette’s lyrics are burning with bile, and while loathing abounds, the fiercest, most incandescent anguish manifests as immolatory self-loathing.
Half Divorced is an album burning with blind, impotent rage and life and the hand it deals. It sees the band really dive in hard to their hardcore roots and pack in track after track. Whereas Why Love Now may have ventured into more exploratory territory under the guidance of Lydia Lunch as a producer, with some longer songs, Half Divorced packs them in tight, with most songs coming in well under two minutes, in proper old-school hardcore style, and it’s one of their fiercest collections to yet.
The three singles released in advance, with the latest being ‘Cling to a Poisoned Dream’, are full of dark energy. Whereas its predecessor placed the lyrics more to the fore, they’re often buried in the blurry murk of the furious, balls-out hardcore assault, and overall, Half Divorced is about sonic impact and it rages hard through dingy basslines and squalls of feedback. Half Divorced is an angry record, and you get the impression they’re angry about everything, but a large portion of that anger is inwardly-focused. I mean, what’s more perfectly midlife than making an album that recreates the sound of your teens while being pissed off with work, the world, and the shitness of your ageing self? ‘Alive With Hate’, clocking in at just over a minute and a half is everything the title suggests, and pretty much sums up this dirty articulation of raging while ageing. If they’re overcompensating by cranking it all up a few notches, well, they can overcompensate away: as OFF! demonstrate, age is no barrier to being cool as long as you’ve still got the fire. Right now, Pissed Jeans have got all the fire, and Half Divorced is relentless and raging and as good as they’ve ever been.
AA
Aural Aggravation 