Pissed Jeans - Hope For Men (Sub Pop)
2/5
By: Edward Mellett
If you play punk music its important to be a punk, and Pissed Jeans certainly sound like they have the ethics down to a T (not a model T though, far too corporate). Their press release brags about lead singer Matt Korvette's simultaneous attempts to exist in the "Straight World" (where he works as an insurance company claims adjuster) in order to live in... well, the Un-straight world apparently. It's not really explained, but obviously it's a great place where bands play, there's 24 hour feedback, and everyone sweats and swears, a lot! F**k! Awesome! Perhaps.
Slightly strange then that after a foot long paragraph explaining just how mind-blowingly punk Pissed Jeans' members are, the amount of records they've sold in shops should be exonerated. Apparently they "sold through two pressings" of 'Don't Need Smoke to Make Myself Disappear'. The royalties must be pretty tasty on an insurance man's salary too.
'Hope for Men' opens with 'People Person', the sound of a triangle and a man slurring a variety of incomprehensible words in an attempt to be hardcore. A piano soon adds to the cacophony, which at least provides some kind of melody to what is basically just a racket. Is this an ironic attempt to throw a middle-finger fuck you at what the 'Straight World' defines as proper behaviour in an urban environment; a twist on the social conventions expected of employees in the increasingly corporate sterility of modern middle America. Probably. But still, It's a racket.
The more you listen to 'Hope for Men', the more you realise it isn't really music at all. It's really anti-music. A piece of constantly ugly graffiti taking on an idea of a corporate system. Unlike The Clash or The Ramones though, who used intelligent, insightful lyrics and aggressive guitar sounds to do this (and convert a generation of youths into politicised beings in the process) Pissed Jeans just sounds pissed off. The sound of the drunken child at a punk gig who doesn't really know what it's all about (but is angry enough to pull down posters, and spit.)
Pissed Jeans sound is frenetic, gristly and antagonising. It's also repetitive, dull and mindless. Standard guitar riffs fall short of grabbing your attention whilst Korvette's painfully shouty singing combines with feedback to create a "shallow, boring, soul sucking vortex". Exactly what Pissed Jeans' press release says they think of The Straight World! Perhaps Pissed Jeans are more suited to the world of insurance and administration than they thought.
Download and MP3 of 'Ice Cream' by Pissed Jeans via Sub Pop HERE.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment