Well, damn. If you asked me to paint a picture of the quintessential band of modern-day, London-bred punks, I don’t think I could do much better than actual South Londoners Shame. They’re young, raw, and unapologetically in-your-face, with lyrics that both want a fight and to just say “ah, fuck off” at the same time…
Well, damn. Welcome The Worms, the brand-damn-new full-length from L.A. trio Bleached — two members of which, sisters Jennifer and Jessica Clavin, you might remember from late-2000s band Mika Miko — grabbed tight to my skeptic self from the very first note of “Keep On Keepin’ On” and refused to let go ’til the very end of “Hollywood, We Did It All Wrong”…
I’ve never seen A Place To Bury Strangers live; after hearing Transfixiation, I’m not sure I’d survive the experience. Part of me wonders that, if I did, once I staggered, blood dripping steadily from my eardrums and my head full of darkness and fear and ruin, back out onto the street, maybe some new facet of the world I’d never fully recognized might suddenly reveal itself to me. Or, on the other hand, I might just pass out in the gutter, sobbing uncontrollably and unable to remember what all had happened. Still, it’s damned tempting to give it a try…
I know I really should be fairly used to it by now, but for some reason, it still makes me scratch my head a little to hear sounds like this coming out of ultra-urban Brooklyn — sounds that are warm and rootsy and homespun, the kind that’d sound more at home heard through the swinging door of some rural honky-tonky outside of Huntsville…
Talk about your appropriately-named bands; Philadelphia duo Sun Airway (aka Jon Barthmus and Patrick Marsceill) hit every note it sounds like they should be hitting, from the name, swooping and soaring their way…
There’s a strangely rural thread that winds its way through the entirety of Akron/Family’s newest, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free, seemingly pointing backwards from the band’s NYC-bred sound to their roots in the Midwest, and that rustic, Middle America upbringing does indeed shine through…
