hungryandliterate-blog

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Horrible Girl and The Hot Mess - ‘Do You Know Who Your Friends Are?’

Horrible Girl brings the bops, hates the cops, and shreds hard.

In an era when the DIY scene can’t stand the over-recycled formula of ‘classic’ pop punk, but the mainstream is still struggling on how to work with bands who incorporate more than two influences, Horrible Girl is smack in the middle of the new wave of hybrid music that’s fun, fast, anthemic, complex, earnest, and humble all at once. What I’m saying to you is: if you ever wish Prince Daddy made songs that were actually about something, pick this album up. When you run across a punk band with an album title about friends, and an intro track called ‘reefer sadness’ that opens with d-beats over chiptune saw leads, you probably don’t expect songs about sexual autonomy, gender, and anti-capitalist angst. And if I told you that’s what this album was about, you probably wouldn’t expect the tunes to bop harder than anything on the Front-Bottoms self-titled vinyl you still keep displayed on your shelf. But that’s where we are. This is the purest form of pop punk. This is 100% ethos with 100% hooks, no 50/50 mix. Really, as far as cry-into-your-beer love songs go, I don’t think you could get a better lyric than, “I love you like UN drones love the Middle East” (what we talk about when we talk about love). And as far as hazy slamming southern-twinged rock, “If the cook with the cross has something to say / about the lace on your shirt / you’ll cut his neck with a broken plate” (graduation) is just as anthemic as anything Springsteen ever sang, but with the appropriate violence and specificity that reminds why punk rock is, was, and always will the music of the working class and marginalized people. On the more technical side, this album straddles a line a lot of DIY punk bands seem interested in now that digital recording allows anyone with a laptop more sonic clarity than The Beatles ever had. Almost every song on the album has Queen-esque ambitions in composition and instrumental voicing, but are tracked to feel very much like the band is in the room performing in front of you, eschewing the notion that ‘anthemic’ music needs to sound ‘big’ (read as: overproduced to feel like you’re in an arena being bombarded on all sides constantly). While I won’t say the choice is always my favorite, I will say it reads as an artistic choice and allows the listener to mentally ‘walk around’ in the compositions and really appreciate what each member is doing, in a recording that is infinitely superior to live tracking, but not masking the human element in almost any way. If that’s your cup of tea, I strongly recommend ‘Some Voids’ by Gutless, which reads as a similar production and is also a 10/10 album. With all the bands in this movement, from basement show veterans like Horrible Girl up through venue-packing icon Jeff Rosenstock, my only concern is that capitalistic marketing will take it’s sweet time giving them the opportunities they deserve, since their music is multi-dimensional, and often calls out corporations and people whose social stances are harmful or disingenuous but often own the very venues, stations, labels, etc that allow music to prosper. But, that’s real punk rock for you. Stream this album, stream your friends albums, get to gigs, and we’ll be blessed with more (real) pop punk bands like Horrible Girl. Overall Rating: 4.5/5 skateboarding skeletons (My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (I’d argue well recorded with ‘punk’ production) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (A perfect blend of social politics and feelings. Both in equal measure and quality.) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (Horrible Girl is, in my opinion, absolutely leading the way in this genre) 4. Does it say something? (It says so many things of absolute importance) 5. Do I personally like it? (I’d argue it’s near impossible to dislike this)

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Heckdang - ‘Never Left Home’

If you ever run out of ‘The Cure’ albums (which is unlikely but still), Heckdang has you covered.

In a musical landscape where the lines between 70′s ambient psych rock, 80′s hazy new wave, 90′s grunge, and 00′s shoegaze are all getting revisited and rearranged, Heckdang does a heck of a job mixing something smooth and compelling from them all. While the ‘big chords and pseudo-country guitar influence’ formula for a track like ‘Ur #1 Tourist’ might be familiar to mopey southerners who have grown up with bands like All Get Out carving this niche, there’s something even more  confidently southern-emo about the arrangement and production of Never Left Home. This is a band who knows you like Basement but also aren’t a former NYC hardcore bro. You, and Heckdang, have always existed in a space between the more artsy end of sad alternative rock and being from a state that has more cows than people, and you’re proud of that, in your own weird way. While I’m tempted to call the record an easy listen, I think a more apt term would be a steady listen. It doesn’t peak and valley it’s moods as abrasively as some of it’s contemporaries trying to explore several genres on one album might, but it does have compelling and inventive variations within each song that make it an absolute gem to listen to a second and third time with an ear specifically on tones and transitions. ‘St. Anthony’ notably jumps from a low-beat rainy day backtrack, to a slamming emotive anthem, into a bendy psych-rock moment of chaos, and a screaming crescendo with seamless fluidity. Overall, my only critique of the album is a slight gain on some of the vocals that I in earnest can’t be sure are even a production flaw as much as an artistic choice. While the delivery isn’t the same, the trick of adding some treble and letting some buzz in has been working for Mewithoutyou for decades, so I can’t knock it. It also adds to the overall raucousness of the heavier moments, in the same way classically overdriven amps did before digital effects. Overall Rating: 4/5 skateboarding skeletons (My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (Yes!) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (Definitely meant to be digested in one piece.) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (While not expressly covering new ground, I think it does fine-tune some niche genre elements) 4. Does it say something? (It definitely touches on personal emotive elements, but not in a way that I see speaking to any larger purpose or theme) 5. Do I personally like it? (Check, check, check)

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Zap Black & The Sixth Century Future Recovery Group - ‘Coulture’

This is one of the the most complex, challenging, and rewarding albums released recently, and I swear some big film studio is just going to pick it up for the token ‘character accidentally takes acid’ scene.

I think it’s fair to say some bands harken to a certain time period when they make an album. Maybe it has 80′s new wave influence. Maybe it has a 90′s grunge feel. But Zap is an artist out of time. With ‘Coulture,’ the SCFRG (wow what a name) gives you an entire era of culture deconstructed and reimagined. While I’m not up on fusion jazz, and can’t speak to the academic successfulness of the arrangements of ‘Welcome to Hudson,’ ‘La Chismea,’ etc, or the technical correctness of the improvised tracks like ‘Legions In The Ocean,’ I can say that they’re important goalposts for a record that breaks in and out of seriousness, reflection, and nuanced reference for something far greater than the sum of the parts. Whether or not it’s intentional, most of the ‘jazzy’ tracks remind me of classic backing scores to ‘golden age’ cartoons like Pink Panther and Scooby Doo. While at first I attempted to fight viewing the music through that lens, the skit tracks, which pulled me into a Monty Python-esque tongue-in-cheek mentality reaffirmed that the band is well aware of the canonical time, and to what media their music is going to reference. Stepping beyond instrumentation, the album pulls you through several pop-adjacent tracks that sound like a blender full of less-dramatic King Crimson, more technically apt B-52′s, and a dash of The Brave Little Toaster. While the record doesn’t necessarily feature any absolutely ‘pop’ moments, it does dance lightly around the ideas of composition as a whole, and plays between tightly arranged boppy vocals, hard-panned and spoken delivery that harkens to retro advertisement, complex but articulate instrument melodies that blend jazz and psych-rock, and absolute pitfalls into chaos like the (in my opinion) epicenter of the album, ‘It’s Really Important’ where the narrator pleads with the listener to understand: “It’s - okay - it’s - you know it’s really - *crying sounds* *laughing sounds* *screaming sounds* It’s really just simple. Please. Please. Please.” ‘Coulture’ is, of course, not simple at all. But it does so much work to invite the listener into the space it’s creating, which is both as familiar as old ‘I Love Lucy’ episodes and as complex and unique as a dream being described by a friend, that anyone with any associations to American media circa 1950 - 1980 are going to have a certain emotional response to the content presented, but not be prepared for it. This album is a dialogue, largely between the artists involved in it’s production, but also with the consumer, that begins with the fractioned and digitally-augmented cover art that screams ‘classic’ with it’s vapor-wave color scheme and faux dust and scuffs, and bleeds into the ‘hands-off’ production, which feels very much like this is happening in a room in front of you, but with the occasional modern touch of panning or modulation that reminds you how self-aware the production is as a whole. The conversation this album wants to have is complicated, but not serious. It’s absolutely one of the headiest things I’ve ever experienced, and I’m barely able to even touch on the nuance of the music itself. If ever there was a record to hang in an art gallery, this is it.

Overall Rating: 4/5 skateboarding skeletons (My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (The recording sometimes leaves me wishing for a bit of overall mastering push, but then the idea that the ‘implied room’ is so clean begins to become central to the album. So... call it a draw?) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (Dear lord, yes) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (More than anything I’ve heard in a long time) 4. Does it say something? (Immaculately) 5. Do I personally like it? (This is too complicated to enter regular rotation for me, but I respect it)

[hungryandliterate-blog]

Everything, Etc - ‘Concrete Wave’ (single)

Sometimes it’s just a good day to skate. (Unless you live in Florida.)

I’m gonna be honest, when I heard those first 5 chord slams, I thought I had clicked the wrong button and accidentally put on ‘Last You Heard of Me’ by Joyce Manor, which I’m often apt to do instead of my work. That being said, Everything Etc, with this new single in particular, has a certain comfortable familiarity that I’ve found it tough to remove myself from when judging a song that sounds like songs that I like, without explicitly ripping them off in ways I can get mad about, but definitely referencing. If you like Fidlar, Mom Jeans, or Prince Daddy, boy do I have the sonic equivalent of a really comfy couch for you. It’s got everything you like: - Nasal 00′s pop-punk verses that get balled up into gritty emotive growls, occasionally reinforced by gang vocals? Check. - 4-on-the-floor drums that break in and out of snare-led push-mosh-worthy slams? Of course. - Surf-inspired punk guitar that sneaks in showy clean solos when you’re least expecting it? Oh, you betcha. - The ‘hey, hey, hey’ bit from Vampire Weekend’s 2008 smash hit ‘A-Punk’? Literally why would that not be there? Why would that not be included? Strange as it sounds for a band with a skeleton pterodactyl kickflipping a tie-dye skateboard on their album art, Everything, Etc has actually matured quite a bit on this release from their previous single. While ‘Who I Am/Who I Was’ (2018) has a very fun, slightly hazy fuzz-rock sound to it, ‘Concrete Wave’ keeps the good vibes rolling (haha, skate pun) while also showcasing a lot more dynamic songwriting and musicianship. This is a song about skateboarding that somehow includes the line, “Pick my scabs so I can get back to bleeding / I call it tenacity, you call it self-defeating” without becoming an absolute bummer. It’s really quite a feat as anyone who has ever tried to punk up an emo song, or add any rhythmic or emotional diversity to a punk song can attest. While the audio recording itself still has a very, “New band on a new band budget” feeling, I think EE made the right choice releasing just two singles up until now, considering how much growth they’ve shown, and how much better the audio quality and vocal delivery grew in the year gap between releases. This track could easily fit on a number of playlists, and feel very much on par with more produced bands because of the wide berth punk affords for production styles. Overall this song definitely stands on it’s own, and fits a number of moods pretty concisely, without feeling jumbled or overly ambitious for what a nice summer song about being sad and skating should be. Overall Rating: 4/5 skateboarding skeletons (My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (Not quite studio quality yet) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (Single, gets a pass) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (I’d have to say no, it’s good for it’s genre, and a step forward for the band, but very on the nose) 4. Does it say something? (I’m going to say yes, actually. This is the song equivalent of a slice-of-life anime. There are in fact no hills in FL) 5. Do I personally like it? (You betcha, it’s in alllll my playlists now) BONUS POINT: Cover art actually has a skating skeleton hell yeah

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Sarah Morrison - ‘Two Songs’

That serene but ephemeral calm and clarity after a long period of crying on your couch, but in the form of music.

Entering Sarah’s bandcamp via ‘A Thrill of Hope,’ their Christmas covers compilation, there’s a tenuous uncertainty of the mood being set. Sarah’s simple ukelele, guitar, and piano music, with their lofty and breathy delivery, has such a direct sincerity, but (much in the tradition of several emo bands in years past covering these tracks) there’s a constant and looming sadness behind it.

With that in mind, I approached Two Songs without a real compass of how to interpret the tone. The first track, ‘Do It For Me,’ solved that within the first 30 seconds:

“What’s the worst thing that you’ve done / and why do you act like you’ve never done it? / Don’t use me to try to be better / I am also obsessed with what I can’t get away from tonight”

This is music to weep to, arranged with such an unnerving simplicity that the listener is afforded absolutely nowhere to run from the self-reflective and self-destructive lyricism. Even the Daniel Johnston cover, with it’s stripped piano and calmly washing ocean of gain static emits a certain pain the original could never have reached. ‘Some Things Last a Long Time’ takes on a whole new meaning and the listener is almost ashamed to make mental eye contact as the vocals unfold.

Where every song on ‘Janus,’ Sarah’s only full-length release has tight pop sensibilities in every melody and rhythm, with perfectly understated percussion on select tracks, Two Songs is the messy-haired, bloody-lipped, avant garde sibling. ‘Do It For Me,’ opens with an arguably off-puttingly simple ‘guitar-and-vocal-layer-directly’ method, only picking up into recognizable Iron and Wine-esque fingerpicking as a slight to the judgmental audience while the lyrics jeer, “Is this better? I’m too basic for you to ever love me.” Continuing the pattern, when the song hits it’s emotional crescendo moments later with the repeated, “Don’t be nice to me” the guitar becomes upsettingly overblown, peaking out and making the recording as ugly as (assumedly) the narrator is describing themselves.

While I personally don’t think I could find myself listening to the aggressively lo-fi nature of the Two Songs tracks on a regular basis, the emotional catharsis and pseudo-violence of the musical arrangements have my absolutely on the edge of my seat for Sarah’s next full-length release. ‘Janus,’ will easily enter my regular rotation, with songs like ‘Drank It All’ striking that perfect balance of easily listenable pop-folk and upsettingly specific self-awareness.

‘Two Songs’ will likely remain a secret weapon for lonely nights, but the concept of seeing those ideas bleed into more produced arrangements has me already clearing Right Away Great Captain and St. Vincent off my playlist to make room for my new interstate drive/crying go-to.

Overall Rating: 4/5 skateboarding skeletons

(My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (No, these are bedroom demos) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (Somehow, yes) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (Shows amazing growth) 4. Does it say something? (I can’t stop crying about what it says) 5. Do I personally like it? (Please make more of this, please)

[hungryandliterate-blog]

5 Cent Psychiatrist - Lycanthropy

You can’t have a ‘punk revival’ until punk dies, is reanimated as a cryptid, defeated and entombed again, but 5CP is really killing it.

I’m a 90′s kid, but not a 90′s punk. I never got into The Descendants, NOFX, or even the good bands of the era like The Dead Milkmen. Living a town away from 5CP (please tell me that acronym gem isn’t a coincidence) and seeing the ‘classic’ punk circles they run in, I never knew how to engage without outing myself as a tight-black-pants-and-guyliner nerd. But let me tell you: After listening to their single ‘Do the Squito,’ a 50′s ice cream parlor bop written for the indie film, “Weresquito: Nazi Hunter,” I got it. Much like their iconic skeleton Charlie Brown himself, I was overthinking it and trying too hard the whole time. Alternative culture is made of (and by) nerds. 5CP has everything you’d expect from a ‘traditional’ punk band: tongue-in-cheek humor, simple song structures, and lyrics that juggle being a depressed nerd with calls to mow down nazis with machine guns. Wrapping the present up nicely (or, really holding the whole thing together) is a childishness unique to folk-punk that allows the irreverence of 90′s punk to coexist with some very sincere moments of melancholy introspection without seeming out of place. While ‘Lycanthropy’ dips in and out of genre influences, ie the opening track ‘A Day In The Life’ sounds like Alkaline Trio doing a Mountain Goats cover set, whereas ‘Afterburn’ gives a distinctly early Against Me! sincere and throaty singer-songwriter vibe, the album has a cohesiveness that a lot of punk can’t find unless each song is absolutely identical. Obviously major (and familiar) connecting themes exist, ie being an outsider, being depressed, yearning for simpler times past, but like Tampa-based Wolf Face and Orlando-based Caffiends, 5CP found a niche / shtick that allows the material to shine past other contemporaries who are a bit too straightforward in their delivery for a genre that has such a long history that even brand new content can feel stagnant / redundant. My only concern moving forward for the band is how to keep the idea alive with future releases. The 18 cumulative tracks that comprise their single, EP, and LP all flow cohesively and with purpose, but like most punk or folk projects facing a looming sophomore effort, recycling any lyrical themes or rhythms could be a huge pitfall. But hey, if you can be a skeleton reborn as a werewolf, the sky is really the limit. Overall Rating: 4/5 skateboarding skeletons (My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (Yes, for the genre) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (Yes, a very nice ride!) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (Yes) 4. Does it say something? (Only to a very small extent) 5. Do I personally like it? (Yes)

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For Your Health - ‘Nosebleeds’

This band, and I cannot exaggerate this enough, made me like skramz by making me aware I already liked skramz but didn’t know what it was.

Appearing from nowhere in late 2018 to launch an entire subculture revival, then dropping an album (on Middle Man Records no less) in 2019 and kickstarting a tour that would unite the entire east coast is no small feat, but For Your Health knocked it out of the park by staying absolutely unwaveringly true to genre.

My personal relationship to skramz (called ‘screamo’ in my 2007 heyday, before that was co-opted by metalcore) was rocky, to say the least, and highly uninformed as my emo mainstays were always MCR and Fall Out Boy. But as I grew (late bloomer) into Touche Amore, Thursday, (old) Pianos Become The Teeth, et all, I began to appreciate that ‘emotional hardcore’ really meant something, just as it essentially all but dissolved in the 2015-and-on universe.

Nosebleeds kicks in with jangly overblown surfy guitars that leave someone expecting an instant mosh pit confused if this is an art record (especially coupled with the Donnie Darko clip), and that’s one of my favorite elements of the album. Very in line with early Touche Amore (Renegotiating the Charade comes to mind), Noseblbeeds constantly teeters between hardcore panic notes, sweeping post-hardcore moments, and chuggy pseudo-metal, with no loyalty to pop music structure to inform the listener what’s coming next. The songs, most clocking in at around 1:30, are the perfect vignette-sized vehicles for that, and the restraint of cutting writing short that could drag on forever (yes, I am dragging Every Time I Die and The Chariot here), is what keeps this firmly tied to it’s hardcore roots, and not drifting off into just noise violence.

If I wanted to be nit-picky, I’d say the lack of bass presence on the album overall does give a slightly ‘diy home-studio’ vibe to an otherwise very well mixed set of songs. (This includes some very non-studio sounding drums, especially on the closing track). I do think though that the complete sonic equator above which no instrument ever seems to rise or fall on the album creates the perfect vehicle for a genre that’s vocals-to-the-front. And the choice to use overblown gain on the vocals is always my personal preference. While artsier bands (see, I Hate Sex) choose reverb, and the genre’s seminal bands (see, Rites Of Spring) chose clean, I think letting the mic be overwhelmed by the singer’s voice also allows the listener to feel that, especially when you drop to moments of clarity.

Overall, this record is exactly what it intends to be, a violently emotional, and poignantly political (FUCK ICE), return to form for a genre that got erased by ‘boy bands with breakdowns.’ If you don’t like skramz (my mom), you’re not going to like it, simple as that. It’s not pandering. But if you’re trying to show someone who only appreciates heavy music that emo isn’t just pop music in eyeliner, please have them start with Nosebleeds. It doesn’t get better than this.

Overall Rating: 5/5 skateboarding skeletons (My 5 point system, detailed) 1. Is it well produced? (Yes, for the genre) 2. Is it an album, not just a collection of songs? (Yes) 3. Is it challenging itself / it’s genre expectations? (Yes) 4. Does it say something? (Absolutely) 5. Do I personally like it? (Yes)