Posts Tagged ‘Punk’

Blowing Up the House II – York Vaults, York, 20th April 2024

Posted: 21 April 2024 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

However well you plan, things just happen that are beyond your control. It’s how you deal with these problems that present themselves which counts. In pulling off ‘Blowing Up the House II’ a punk and post-punk half-dayer with half a dozen bands for free / donations, Andy Wiles has performed little short of a miracle. Looking at the poster for the event on the venue wall, with a hand-written A4 sheet stuck in the middle with the stage times, it’s apparent that only three of the acts from the original advertised lineup are actually on the bill. Losing one key act due to diary mismanagement on their part must have been frustrating, but to lose the headliners on the day due to the drummer having broken his arm surely felt like a message from the gods, and not a kind one.

Still, the replacements could not have been better; the addition of JUKU on an already solid bill proved to be both inspired and fortunate, and then for Soma Crew to step into the headline slot, hot on the heels of the release of their new album made for a fitting switch.

Among the lower orders, Saliva Birds had some steely post-punk moments that reminded me of later Red Lorry Yellow Lorry with driving bass and solid drumming, and overall, they were pretty decent, and went down well.

As was the case with Saliva Birds, I had zero expectations of Zero Cost, up from Hull. They play some perfectly passable hard, fast three-chord punk marred somewhat by excessive guitar solos. They were at their best when they went even harder and even faster for some back-to-back explosive 30-second blasts. They only half-cleared the room, and they got some old people dancing very vigorously.

It’s getting to the point where Percy are likely in the top three or four bands I’ve seen the most times, partly because they’ve been playing gigs locally since before the dawn of time, but mostly because they’re worth turning out for. It’s fair to say you know what you’re going to get with Percy, in terms of consistency, and the rate they write new material, there’s always something new in the set – namely half of the forthcoming album, with the title track getting a premier tonight.

Opening their set with the darkly paranoid ‘I Can Hear Orgies’, Colin’s guitar is a metallic clang amidst screening feedback, contrasting with the eerie synths and insistent rhythm section. The loudness of Bassist Andy’s shirt threatens to drown out the sound from his amp, a big low rumble that defines the band’s sound. The drums are loud and crisp and propel some proper stompers.

“Don’t try the wotsits, they taste like earplugs,” Colin quips, in uncharacteristically jovial form, referring to the jar on the bar.

On the evidence of tonight’s outing, the album will be a dark, jagged collection of post punk songs about alcoholic blackouts and sex parties, and even without older favourites like ‘Chunks’ and ‘Will of the People’ in the setlist, there’s plenty of earworms. The waltz-time Thinking of Jacking it in Again’ sits somewhere between The Stranglers and Slates-era Fall.

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Percy

My review of JUKU’s debut performance last Summer was the fourth most-read article at Aural Aggravation for 2023 (behind the review of Swans’ The Beggar, Spear of Destiny at The Crescent, and my interview with Stewart Home). It was a gig that warranted all the superlatives. And they’re every bit as immense and mind-blowingly good as I remember tonight. It’s full-throttle heads-down stompers from start to finish. With big, ball-busting grungy riffs hammered out hard at high volume, there are hints of the Pixies amidst the magnificent sonic blast… but harder and heavier. And the drummer is fucking incredible. His powerhouse percussion drives the entire unit with ferocity and precision. Naomi’s delivery and demeanour contrasts with the lyrics wracked with turmoil, while Dan plays every chord with the entirety of his being, and to top it all, they have some tidy post-punk pop songs buried like depth charges beneath that blistering wall of noise. It’s a perfect package, and they’re an absolute-must-see band.

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JUKU

With a lot of bands and a lot of kit, with really tight turnaround times, it’s a huge achievement that the headliners are only ten minutes late starting, and credit’s due to venue and bands alike for their no-messing approach to plugging in and playing without any soundcheck beyond checking that there is sound. The sound, in the event, is consistently good all night – well-balanced, clear, and achieving an appropriate volume.

Soma Crew are another band I’ve seen more times than I can now count, and they just go from strength to strength. Many acts would have been daunted by following JUKU, bit they’re seasoned performers who play with a certain nonchalance and slip into their own inward-facing bubble where they just play, and magic happens.

Tonight they’re out as a three-piece (the lineup seems to vary week by week, probably as much dependent on availability as by design), and much respect is due for their starting with a quintessential Soma Crew slow-builder, a crawl with crescendos which plugs away at the same droning chord for a solid six or so minutes. On the face of it, their hippy-trippy space rock is neither punk nor post-punk – but what could be more punk than doing precisely this? As their Bandcamp bio asks, ‘Why play 4 chords, why play 3. Why play 2 when 1 will do…?’ This is a manifesto they truly love by, and I’m on board with that: the joy of their music emerges from the hypnotic nature of the droning repetition, a blissful sonic sedative.

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Soma Crew

While the rhythm section throbs away on a tight groove, beautiful chaos cascades from Simon’s amp via an array of pedals that occupies half the stage. It’s seven-minute single ‘Propaganda Now’ that solidifies their taking command of the room by virtue of doing their own thing.

Once again, it’s a trip to a grass-roots venue that shows just how much great music there is to be had a million miles from the corporate air hangars which charge £7 a pint and scalp the performers for 30% of their merch takings. It’s not even about the pipeline for the next big names who’ll be on at Glastonbury in a few years: it’s about real music, music that matters.

Pound Land – Mugged

Posted: 15 April 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature – 26th April 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Just as their album was smashing the charts and the band were riding the crest of the wave, the shit hit the fan for The Last Dinner Party over a quote about how “People don’t want to listen to postpunk and hear about the cost of living crisis any more.” Of course, it was taken out of context, and all the rest, but I’ve got no truck with any kind of critique from a bunch of boarding school poshos: of course they can peddle theatrical escapism, because they’ve spent their entire lives in a Gatsby-like whirl of posh frocks and soirees. The name is a bit of a giveaway: only people of a certain position in the social strata ‘do’ dinner parties, dahling, no doubt sharing culinary delights discovered while trotting the globe on their gap yahh. Meanwhile, half the country is at the point where it struggles to afford a McDonald’s, let alone gastropub grub.

It might sound counterintuitive to those so far removed from the reality endured by the majority – the Jeremy Cunts and Rachel Johnsons of the world who reckon £100K a year isn’t much – but music that reflects the grim realities of life are what people do want. Life juggling work and parenting while struggling to make ends meet can be not only stressful, but isolating, and so music which speaks of the harsh realities serves as a reminder that you are not alone. It’s relatable in the way that soaps are for many.

As an aside, I saw a post from a (virtual) friend on Facebook recently commenting that every time they visited Manchester, it pissed it down, and it so happens that this is my experience also. It’s small wonder, then, that Pound Land are such miserable mofos, and again, contrast this by way of a band name with The Last Dinner Party. This is an act that’s gritty and glum and telling it like it is. And you know how it is – and how bad it is – when stuff in Poundland, the shop, costs £1.50, £2, even a fiver. Back in the 90s, you could got to Kwik save and get a tin of No Frills baked beans for 3p and a loaf of bred for 19p.

It’s perhaps because of just how far downhill and how fast it’s happening – in real time – that with Mugged, Pound Land have delivered their most brutally blunt and utterly squalid set to date.

‘Living in Pound Land’ is a brief blast of an intro, atonal shouty pink with some wild parping jazz tossed in, and it hints at what’s to come: ‘Spawn of Thatcher’ is dirty, disdainful, spitting and snarling vocals hit with a grunt and a sneer amidst a cacophony of jazziness held together by a saw-toothed bass grind.

There are hints of The Fall in the mix, a dash of the raging fury of Uniform, too.

As ‘Flies’ evidences, they’re not all one hundred percent serious: against a pounding drum machine reminiscent of Big Black and a bowel-tensing bass, we get a yelping pseudo-John Lydon vocal going on about flies in his underpants.

The nine-minute ‘Power to the People’ is the album’s centrepiece, literally and figuratively. A slow, groaning behemoth, it thuds and grinds away for nine and a half minutes, coming on like ‘Albatross’ for the 2020s (That’s PiL, not Fleetwood Mac) mixed with a Fall cut circa ‘Slates’ played at half speed, its grinding repetition emerging more at the Swans end of the spectrum. It’s ugly, it’s unpretentious. ‘Power to the people! Make everything equal!’ slides down to a rabid howl of ‘be happy with what you’ve got’, exposing the lie of meritocracy and social mobility. The album’s second ten-minute monster, ‘Shish Doner Mix Apocalypse’ is a brutal shredder – like much of the rest of the album, only longer.

Contextually, one might be inclines to position Pound Land somewhere alongside Sleaford Mods and Benefits, but they’re a very different proposition – sociopolitical, yes, but more overtly rock in musical terms, mashing up punk, post-punk, krautrock and noise rock. And then there’s that manic jazz streak.

The snarling racket of single cut ‘Pistol Shrimp’ is both representative, and as nice as it gets. That is to say, Mugged is not nice: in fact, it’s harrowing, gnarly, overtly unpleasant. But it is also entirely necessary.

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Shooting Daggers – Love & Rage

Posted: 1 April 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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New Heavy Sounds – 16th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

As a label, New Heavy Sounds really do what they say on the proverbial tin – giving a platform to heavy music, while seeking out new forms and styles. Yes, they’ve brought us a slew of stoner doom, but also vintage heard rock with contemporary spins – and, as Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard and Black Moth, representing each respectively, also illustrate, representing female-fronted acts, too. And so, next up, London-based queercore punk trio, Shooting Daggers.

Having debuted with an EP in 2022, they shared a split single release with intense and fearsome Ukrainian punk labelmates Death Pill last year – and it was a most fitting pairing.

Said single contribution, ‘Not My Rival’ features on this, their debut album, in remastered form, but still clocking in at under two and a half blistering minutes. This version isn’t really different, just cleaned up a bit and mastered at the same volume as the rest of the album. And what a fiery blast of rabid punk fury it is. ‘Give Violence a chance!’ they holler while the bass tears the flesh from your ribs and the guitar burns.

As a title, Love & Rage perfectly encapsulates the pounding ferocity of the album’s nine explosive cuts, the majority of which are comfortably under three minutes in duration. Sal’s vocal delivery is of that circa ‘79 / ’80 vintage, but at the same time contemporary, shouty, spiky, a dash of X-Mal but equally ragged and raw and without stylistic affectation. This is music played with passion, music made because it has to be, an act of catharsis, pure, unbridled venting.

The mid-album slowie, ‘A Guilty Conscience Needs an Accuser’, which closes side one on the vinyl version, not only provides some welcome respite from the incendiary fury, but also showcases their capacity for melody, harmony, and subtlety. There’s certainly not much of that to be found on the rest of the album. ‘Tunnel Vision’ is a gutsy grunger played at double speed, and ‘Bad Seeds’ pounds in a manic hardcore blast which tears your head off and is out the door in a minute and twenty-three.

The title track lands unexpectedly anthemic, energetic but considered, and even a bit Dinosaur Jr. It works, and it works well, and the final track, ‘Caves/Outro’ plays out on a ripple of piano and a note of tranquillity, a calm after the storm. And for all of the ferocity which defines both the album and the band themselves, there’s much positivity in the lyrics and an energy to the performance which is anything but negative.

‘Yeah! Do it! Do it!’ Sal encourages enthusiastically on ‘Dare’; ‘Just have a try’ she sings on ‘Smug’, and on the title track, the message is to ‘Turn the pain into power’. But this is no feeble stab at rabble-rousing or a cliché and ultimately empty bit of tokenistic fist-waving. Shooting Daggers appreciate that anger truly is an energy, and they bring it with full force. The result is an album that packs a punch, and when it comes to punk credentials, this is the real deal.

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Pissed Jeans – Half Divorced

Posted: 29 February 2024 in Reviews
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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.

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Watch: ‘I Won’t Work for You’ by CNTS

Posted: 28 February 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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CNTS, the Los Angeles-band featuring members of Dead Cross, Retox and Qui, have debuted a second song from their forthcoming album (Thoughts & Prayers, 29th March) with today’s release of ‘I Won’t Work For You’ and its accompanying video.

Matt Cronk shares the story behind the song: “’I Won’t Work For You’ was inspired by the talking point being bandied about, mostly by conservatives, that ‘nobody wants to work anymore’ after having collected unemployment during the lockdown. I think a more accurate way to frame that is that nobody wants to work for people who treat them badly. Nobody wants to work without the expectation of fair pay and dignity. Nobody wants to work for the sole purpose of enriching someone else, and nor should they! Work sucks. I think a lot of people, myself included, are inspired to find more equitable means of supporting themselves or at least expect more from their employers.”

Michael Crain adds, very succinctly: “Bosses suck.”

The video, directed by Meriel O’Connell, who also crafted the band’s ‘Smart Mouth’ clip, was filmed at a pizza joint where Michael Crain worked. During tough times, Crain occasionally treated Cronk to a free slice.

Watch the video here:

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Hammok – look how long lasting everything is moving forward for once

Posted: 22 February 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Thirty Something Records – 1st March 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Norwegian noise rock act Hammok have been giving much cause for excitement in recent months. Having first encountered them by way of their Jumping/Dancing/Fighting EP, just over a year ago, they’ve continued to produce something just that bit different. Noisy, yes, but also jerky, and quirky. Something about their sound and the delivery grabbed me. Perhaps it was the instant tinnitus brought on by the full-throttle blast delivered with unbridled mania. Jumping/Dancing/Fighting was less a knock on the door followed by polite head nodding and a round-the-group introduction than rocking up at a dinner party, kicking the door down, pissing on the welcome mat and setting fire to the hallway to announce their arrival.

The title of their debut album look how long lasting everything is moving forward for once, makes no sense linguistically, as a phrase, or even in terms of content. It’s a loosely-assembled succession of words that sort of convey something, although its precise meaning is unclear. And as such, it seems quite right and fitting for the sonic riot it hosts. Since Jumping/Dancing/Fighting late in 2022, they released a second EP last June, and with almost an album’s worth of material already out there, their first album doesn’t include a single track off these first releases, and, trailed by single release ‘Séance’ last month, look how long lasting everything is moving forward for once is an album devised as an album – rather than a collection of songs.

look how long lasting everything is moving forward for once is a short, sharp shock, and a brutal blast, to boot. It pack in eleven songs, and while a few are of a solid length – ‘Wannabe (Billboard No. 1)’, ‘BRAINROTDESPERATION’ and ‘Eat You Alive’ all stretch beyond the four-minute mark, but the majority off the songs are under three minutes, with a fair few – the 1:20 ‘Post Wannabe’ and 1:55 ‘Post Wannabe’ and 2:19 ‘Trap Door’ and 2:28 single ‘Séance’ all blasting hard like sonic injections, eye-popping explosions of innovation and raw energy.

‘Long Lasting’ crashes in on wave of feedback before blasting into an incendiary wave of noise with frenetic drums and manic vocals screaming all explode like a sonic supernova. Charging into an album headlong like this has impact, alright, but inevitably poses the question of just how sustainable that kind of energy is. Immediately after, the raging post-punk ‘Séance’ feels like the obvious lead single choice, with its neat synths, pumping percussion and something almost resembling a hook. It’s a cracking tune, but it’s wild, crazed, and intensely noisy, combining the screamy grunge of Pulled Apart By Horses with a ferocious hardcore punk element.

‘Nothing’s Never Better’ maintains the pace and the raging nihilistic fury, but again hints at an evolving signature for Hammok – a minuscule break, often no more than a couple or bars – where from amidst the chaos and the discord, there’s the briefest flicker off melody, or levity, like a single ray of run breaking through a thoroughly clouded sky following twelve hours of solid heavy rain. It’s so fleeting as to seem almost imaginary.

There’s grunge, noise rock, post-punk, hardcore, and post-metal all in the mix here, all fermenting away fervently, and it’s a lethal cocktail, which has resulted in an album that’s too hard, too fast, too wild, too varied, to get down with straight away.

‘Wannabe (Billboard No. 1)’ is almost pop-punk… almost. Because it brings an unexpected and hard to reconcile range of elements, from the charging fury of early Idles and the shimmering, chiming breaks of Interpol, delivered with a dash of shoegaze and for all the rambunctious rage, there’s something inherently sad about it – the mood, not the song or the band.

‘H.F.D.’ is as much of a blasting wall of house as it gets, making any Strapping Young Lad mentions appropriate, and then there’s a sudden lurch into gnarly metal with a lot of detail. Meanwhile, ‘BRAINROTDESPERATION’ is a magnificent piece which manages to cross post-rock with hardcore and brings a dramatic, gothic edge. The riffs and rackets keep on coming, back-to-back, end-on-end, and the intensity does not let up. There are brief flickers of melody which peep through the blanket of noise, occasional lines with almost resemble hooks, but they’re whipped away as soon as you catch a glimpse of them, leaving you wondering if you imagined them. ‘Eat You Alive’ is a ferocious squall of guitars, the vocals are positively rabid, and the final track, ‘Terror’ arrives not only as a contrast but a surprise, with some jangly indieness paving the way for something that’s an incongruously upbeat slice of emo metalcore.

look how long lasting everything is moving forward for once is an overwhelming experience. There isn’t a dull moment, or even a moment to catch breath, and consequently, knocks the wind out of you and leaves you dizzy and dazed. look how long lasting everything is moving forward for once is imaginative, inventive, insane, and is solid proof that Hammok are no slouches when it comes to mongering noise.

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Nine O’Clock Nasty – Smash Grab & Go

Posted: 17 February 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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17th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Writing on their single ‘Existential Dread’ in these virtual pages in October, James Wells was hugely enthused by the track, but made no bones about the fact he wasn’t keen on the band’s name. But listening to this, it makes perfect sense: with a filthy, serrated bassline that grates away like a rusty saw, it’s nasty alright, and probably best not to be aired pre-watershed. It’s punky, but also owes an immense debt to The Fall, not least of all with the delivery of the sneery, snarky vocals, chewing on the refrain and spitting it out, mangled and messy. The there’s the thumping repetitive drumming and, appearing unexpectedly, some quite buoyant 80s indie synth work. But it’s not just some cheap Fall rip-off – although its lo-fi fizz is integral to its appeal – but brings elements of The Pixies into play as part of its grungy four-chord stomp. They’re not wrong when they describe it as ‘Simple. Direct. Violent.’ And say that they’ve made ‘a song that sounds exactly like the adrenaline rush when you realise that life will never be the same again.’ Clocking in at two minutes and fifteen seconds, there’s no space for mucking about.

They add: ‘We made a song about something complex and difficult. Identify. Surveillance. Scrutiny. Or maybe it is a song about sending dick pics or shoplifting? Really, it means whatever you want to mean. In Crowland you decide what something means. What is truthful.’ One may argue that this is something of a cop-out, but by the same token, it acknowledges and accepts that songs take on meanings which are personal and individual to each listener, and to impose meaning is likely futile – or a likely cause of disappointment to some. There aren’t many lyrics to unravel, as it happens, with the verses consisting of the lines ‘Pixelate me! Hide my face!’ between choruses consisting of the title repeated. Its simplicity is its genius.

Watch: ‘Future Burns’ by Totally Slow

Posted: 15 February 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Skate punk band Totally Slow infuses melodic hardcore with a creative surf vibe and a 90s basement punk ethos. Their music is a blend of razor-sharp hooks and left-leaning politics, delivered amidst a wall of guitars. Eddie Sanchez (Night!Night!, Solar Halos, The Love Language) has recently joined on bass, completing the current lineup which includes Andy Foster, Chuck Johnson, and Scott Hicks.

Having shared the stage with various acts, from Agent Orange to Laura Jane Grace to Man or Astroman, they bring a diverse musical experience to their audience.

In celebration of their fourth LP, the band unveils the melodic punk anthem ‘Future Burns.’

Check it here:

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Listen: ‘Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt’ by Pissed Jeans

Posted: 6 February 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Pissed Jeans shares ‘Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt,’ a crushing new track about the heady excitement of shrinking debt-to-credit ratios, and a highlight from their forthcoming album Half Divorced.

Listen here – it’s a belter!

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Last month, the band announced the release of the album with the official video for indelible lead single ‘Moving On’ from director and frequent collaborator Joe Stakun (‘The Bar Is Low,’ ‘Bathroom Laughter,’ ‘Romanticize Me’).

Pissed Jeans’ Half Divorced is the follow-up to 2017’s Why Love Now, an album that took aim at the mundane discomforts of modern life. The twelve songs of Half Divorced skewer the tension between youthful optimism and the sobering realities of adulthood. Pissed Jeans’ – Matt Korvette (vocals), Bradley Fry (guitar),  Randy Huth (bass), and Sean McGuinness (drums) – notorious acerbic sense of humor remains sharper than ever as they dismember some of the joys that contemporary adult life has to offer.

Half Divorced was produced and mixed by Pissed Jeans and Don Godwin and engineered by Mike Petillo at Tonal Park in Takoma Park, Maryland, and mastered by Arthur Rizk (co-producer and mixer for Why Love Now).

Pissed Jeans’ previously announced international tour dates in support of Half Divorced span Friday, February 29th through Thursday, April 4th. Additional live dates will be announced soon.

Thu. Feb. 29 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios

Fri. Mar. 01 – Seattle, WA – Madame Lou’s

Sat. Mar. 02 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo

Fri. Mar. 15 – Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts

Sat. Mar. 16 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Vitus

Fri. Mar. 29 – Schijndel, NL – Paaspop Festival

Sat. Mar. 30 – London, UK – EartH (aka Hackney Arts Centre)

Sun. Mar. 31 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Punk Fest

Tue. Apr. 02 – Glasgow, UK – Stereo

Wed. Apr. 03 – Dublin, IE – Whelan’s

Thu. Apr. 04 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club

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Barren Womb – Chemical Tardigrade

Posted: 30 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Fucking North Pole Records/Blues For The Red Sun – 16th February 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

One might think that after Anal Cunt, Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel, Rapeman, Cancer Bats, and Dying Fetus, all of the band manes people would find problematic had been exhausted, or otherwise people would have grown immune to blunt shock tactics. Yet it seems that Nordic heavy noise rockers Barren Womb have found a moniker capable of touching a nerve for its poor taste. I’m by no means about to invoke wokeism here, but we do seem to have witnessed an enhanced level of sensitivity in resent years. I can’t ever criticise anyone for calling out of sexism, racism, double standards, or general cuntiness, and wince when I see many of the predominantly right-wing wankers defending ‘free speech’ as a right to be offensive, racially, homophobically, or demeaning the poor or the disabled. But being overtly offensive simply because? Shock still has its place and its merits, and I’m more shocked that people are still shocked than by the shock itself. On balance, Barren Womb likely sits more in the ‘crass’ bracket than the overtly offensive, but it’s perhaps not really my call to make, and I’m here primarily to judge the album on its merits.

They’ve been going since 2011, since when they have ‘been raising both eyebrows and hell with their minimalist approach, earsplitting volume and defiant experimentation’, although it’s only recently that they’ve registered on my radar ahead of the release of fourth album Lizard Lounge, ‘a bombastic slab of modern noise rock in the vein of Daughters, Metz and Viagra Boys, to critical acclaim through Loyal Blood Records in 2020’ – I said of it that it was ‘wild and loud and absolutely hits the spot.’

Their bio informs us that ‘The duo make efficient use of crude dynamics and the power of the riff to hammer their point across’ and that ‘They have played close to 300 shows in the US and Europe so far, sharing stages with among others Entombed A.D., Voivod, Conan, Nomeansno and Årabrot, and have played festivals like SXSW, by:Larm, Tallinn Music Week, Øya and Pstereo.’ Clearly, then, the name has been no significant obstacle to their reaching an audience – and they’ve once again hit the spot with this effort.

Chemical Tardigrade is an absolute beast of an album. ‘McLembas’ blasts out of the traps an explosion of raging overdriven riff-fuelled fury. The barking vocals are pure fire, screaming a stream of references from the Bible to Fight Club and the guitars are lean, strangled, and sinewy before detonating hard enough to collapse buildings. The power of the drums is a real not-so-secret weapon: they’re up in the mix, but also really thick, and dense, with the kick and snare dominating and the cymbals backed off, the result being a full-on percussive pummelling.

If the feel is raw, rowdy punk, there’s also whole lot more to it than lump-headed fist-pumping choruses ‘Bug Out bag’ is more hardcore than grunge, and blasts into full-throttle punk, and ‘Campfire Chemist’ comes on like Fugazi playing while the studio’s on fire, before the flames lick at their heels and they ratchet up to the screaming mania of early Pulled Apart by Horses.

They’re not without humour, as titles like ‘D-Beatles’ ‘Dung Lung’, and ‘Batchelor of Puppets’ indicate, the latter, as a single cut, stands out, but it’s a ball-busting blast from beginning to end, with D-Beatles being a raging explosion of frenzied crust punk, marking another of many twists and turns in their expansive palette of mangled noise. It’s hard to credit that just two people can produce quite this much racket. ‘High Fructose Napalm Syrup’ is every bit as explosive and crazed as the title suggests, some hefty minor-key power chords lumbering around some frenetic drumming. They save the hardest and heaviest for the end, with ‘Dung Lung’ going all-out at the front end before surging to a melodic and uplifting climax. And for all the fury, all the weight, all the volume, all the intensity, there’s a sense of fun which filters through the entirety of Chemical Tardigrade, which makes the experience ultimately – and unexpectedly – enjoyable.

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