Audio By Carbonatix
“We don’t sell starry-eyed schoolboy songs.” So declares Bailer on “Savor Control,” one of the more blatantly anthemic tracks from the group’s new disc, Sing It Like a Victim (whose release will be celebrated Saturday, April 30, at Pancho’s Villa). And that lyric is an apt self-description: With tongues wrapped around the fractured parlance of post-hardcore, the trio nonetheless shows zero tolerance for the genre’s newfound commercial aspirations. Nodding toward pre-pop Engine Down and the grimier, bleaker moments of Jawbreaker’s Bivouac, these eight songs slam it all down on the table; everything from punk ritualism to the sociopolitical ramifications of asshole neighbors is tackled head-on in fits of sparse dissonance, cat-in-heat howling and rhythms that throb like embolisms. “The Burnham Hoyt Room,” the album’s high point, imagines a Quicksand-sunk Minutemen; by the time its metered savagery dissolves into a drone of feedback and angular chants, it’s clear that Bailer has forged a document that lives up to its integrity and ambition.
