Sub Pop’s newest buzz band, Pissed Jeans, sounds like the kind of guys that will get fucked up with you on a Monday night while your “responsible” friends are already getting their beauty sleep to prep for the next morning. Actually, they sound like the kind of guys that will get fucked up with you any day of the week, and that is just one of their many likeable qualities.
Their first album for Sub Pop, Hope For Men, harkens back to the label’s earliest punk rock days complete with sludgy guitars, half-slurred, half-growled vocals, and serious attitude problems.
Vocalist Matt Korvette is a claims adjuster by day, and guitarist Bradley Fry is an “account manager” of some sort, which completely explains the ferocity they unleash on this record. Free-association lyrics in the art-rock/spoken-word “The Jogger” demonstrate a sort of suburban desperation: “Whole Foods… Water Bottle… Entertainment Unit… Distant Relatives… Area Rugs…Fantasy Football….”
But it’s not all depressing. From the cave-man-on-hallucinogens- sounding “People Person” to the Jesus-Lizard-influenced “Secret Admirer,” Pissed Jeans blends humor and subversion into a clever package. Tongue-in-cheek on songs like “I’ve Still Got You (Ice Cream),” which could be an early Mudhoney album outtake, they come across as though they’re not sure whether they want to pick a fight or give you a hug.
Either way, a rock band this dirty is a welcome presence in a world that wants us to trade in our reckless abandon in order to keep our credit scores up.
– Jamie Ludwig
Pissed Jeans (Sub Pop)