Sub Pop Records

PISSED JEANS

Age and a total of four full-lengths haven’t mellowed Pissed Jeans; they can still unleash a blare that will exfoliate your cochlea. Formed in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Pissed Jeans released Shallow, their first album, in 2005 on Parts Unknown Records. The band relocated to Philadelphia seven years ago, and Sub Pop released Hope for Men in 2007, and then King of Jeans in 2009. The latter was recorded by Grammy nominee Alex Newport, who also recorded their latest album, Honeys.

The process of recording four full-lengths has refined Pissed Jeans. Instead of rehashing past records or diverging in a vastly different direction their ideas and execution have become more subtly focused. The songs on Honeys are direct without being obtuse, evocative without being vague, and personal without being indulgent. They also rock like nobody’s business. Do yourself a favor and forget all the claptrap you’ve heard about other bands delivering the goods. If you want bloodthirsty, you’ve got it… Sean McGuinness makes other rock drummers look like one of those dimwit longhairs with an involuntary smile playing a bongo by himself on the lawn behind a store that sells rain sticks. With a bass that sounds like a train filled with stolen shopping carts crashing into an orchestra pit, Randy Huth doesn’t waste a note. Bradley Fry doesn’t look like a guitar hero; he looks like a nice guy who would volunteer to help you reformat the drive on your laptop. But if he looked like he sounds he’d be wearing a necklace of human heads and even his reflection would turn you to stone. Matt Korvette screams out observations on the tedium and absurdity of adulthood, delivered in a fashion…