New Pissed Jeans - Half Divorced

[iamcoop]

Arguably the best punk rock band in the world, Pissed Jeans, are back with a new album called Half Divorced.

Needless to say it's another absolute banger, possibly more accessible than their previous work but with all the intensity of their previous albums.

Matt Korvette is one of the best lyricists in rock these days, for my money.

I know The Mollusk is a fan as I think it was one his posts many years ago that got me tuned into these.

Anyone else a fan and heard this?

They're touring the U.K. at the end of the month and I'm sad there's no Newcastle date as there's no way I could get back to Newcastle from the Brudenell on the same night, and if I was to pay for a hotel plus train plus ticket I'd be looking at a cool £200+ to see them.

Anyway go see them if you're in London/Glasgow/Leeds. They're truly one of the best about and look insane live. 

[bushwick]

Fucking love them. Saw them at the Fenton in 2008 and going to Brude next month. The best "noise rock" band nowadays and the most accurate depiction of modern masculinity. It's funny that Matt has had to shave his head finally after thinning heavily for years. Yeah they're special, probably as good as Flipper. Their live cover of "It's So Easy" is amazing, check it on YouTube.

Big influence when I started my old band , them and Clockcleaner who were getting coverage at the same time (they were good too but more arch, perhaps).

Not heard the new album yet but really like the first single from it and heard the recent set posted by Hate5Six on YouTube the other day, excellent. They've got a lot of material now, good few albums. "False Jesi Pt 2" might be my favourite by them?

[The Mollusk]

Yeah I love these lads a lot, and agree with all of the above. Matt is fuckin hilarious on stage and his lyrics are killer, highly entertaining vocal range and dress sense, whole package. I also very recently found out he runs a blog where he's written thousands of little album reviews which he posts every day or so, and has particularly excellent taste in ambient and industrial techno!

Romanticise Me might be my fave tune but recently I've been drooling over the blunt slab of ugliness that is Love Without Emotion. I sometimes take issue with how their albums are mixed as they can sound a bit flat, but despite one of their overall weaker efforts Why Love Now was their best produced album since the first album Shallow (which fucking rules).

Not heard this new one yet but keen, and will be seeing them again at the end of the month. Can't wait.

[iamcoop]

Fuck it, just booked for Leeds. Hopefully I can make it back to the station in time for my 23:27 train.

[Goldentony]

Clockcleaner

one of the weirdest things i've ever seen a band try and pull is when these cunts tried to cite the first Skr*wdriver LP as an influence and had it in all the PR copy

[non capisco]

 

Needless to say it's another absolute banger, possibly more accessible than their previous work but with all the intensity of their previous albums.

Concur with this, played it three times on the bounce walking home from work today. Got a ticket for the London show and champing at the bit for that gig now. From previous experience they always bring it. Korvette is such a naturally funny fucker as well. Enjoyed seeing them at Desertfest in the Roundhouse a few years back in front of a huge slideshow of "Brits on the piss fails" photos, seemed kind of perfect.

[Calistan]

Never heard of these lads but have spent the last hour listening to a few songs. Romanticise Me was a cracker of an introduction (so thanks Mollusk) and then False Jesi Pt 2 and Love Without Emotion were amazing too. Will have to listen to some albums sharpish.

[Dirty Boy]

Why Love Now is the one Lydia Lunch produced right? I wasn't particularly impressed with that, but this one is sounding more like it. Strong early Black Flag vibes.

For some reason i always connect them in my mind with that band Metz, are they still going?

one of the weirdest things i've ever seen a band try and pull is when these cunts tried to cite the first Skr*wdriver LP as an influence and had it in all the PR copy

They weren't nazi to begin with were they?

[The Mollusk]

For some reason i always connect them in my mind with that band Metz, are they still going?

They've been away for 4 years but just announced a new album recently.

I really like their first two albums for being unashamedly basic two-chord noise rock headbangers and they were a fucking force of nature on stage as well. They remain the one and only band whose gig I've ever crowd surfed at and it was a good one.

They went more adventurous on their following two which made my atrocious attention span wane and I forgot about them for a while myself until this recent announcement.

[Goldentony]

They weren't nazi to begin with were they?

they weren't but still don't think i've ever got my head around the logic of doing it in the first place because even with the disclaimers the bands name is still all over your albums blurb

[wrec]

they weren't but still don't think i've ever got my head around the logic of doing it in the first place because even with the disclaimers the bands name is still all over your albums blurb

I've seen people say that as an ironic trope, maybe that was the context?

Saw Pissed Jeans on the Hope for Men tour, need to get up to speed with the new stuff.

[Goldentony]

I've seen people say that as an ironic trope, maybe that was the context?

yeah I guess, haven't thought about them for ages tbh and they're quite good but that always seemed like a risk

[kngen]

they weren't but still don't think i've ever got my head around the logic of doing it in the first place because even with the disclaimers the bands name is still all over your albums blurb

There was an odd period in time when a fair few bands like them were trying to imbue themselves with a bit of 'controlled' edginess and PC-punk-baiting, citing All Skrewed Up as influence, but with the get-out clause of 'hey, they weren't nazis back then! They even did a Peel Session!' - which never really washed with me because:
1) It's alright - couple of bangers (Government Action is a genuinely good punk song with apropos lyrics for the time), but - if it wasn't for what Skrewdriver became - nihilistic edgelords would be about as likely to cite them as an influence as they would Johnny Moped or Radiators from Space or some other half-forgotten Chiswick band.

2) Musically, Skrewdriver's (early) nazi records are far better written and catchier than the Chiswick LP (if not performed exceptionally well. 'Half-decent musicians who are also bonehead nazis who aren't afraid of getting beaten up every time they leave the house' is a pretty small pool to draw on). It's the horrific lyrical content that makes them unlistenable.

But then came Jewdriver, taking the bull by the horns (in much the same way Limp Wrist did by exposing and lampooning the massively homoerotic aesthetics of youth crew hardcore) which made all the 'ooh, aren't we naughty?' posturing of many a band seem even more risible. I'm admittedly not up to speed on where All Skrewed Up figures in the current canon of forbidden punk artifacts (cf. Antidote, Nihilistics, Lockjaw, etc etc), but it did feel like Jewdriver did a great job of drawing a line under that silliness.

As for Pissed Jeans - GBOL. I'd like to see them again, but nothing will ever match my first exposure to them, so I'm weirdly reticent to dilute that experience in a way.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I would have thought any hope for rehabilitation that first Skrewdriver album had would be very easily obliterated by that song on there about noncing 

Anyway I'm pretty sure J Mascis and Steve Albini have talked about liking that album as well for what it's worth

[iamcoop]

I'm on a few punk vinyl/memorabilia trading sites on Facebook and there's always people flogging Skrewdriver stuff on there saying PLEASE NO COMMENTS CALLING ME A RACIST NONCE THIS WAS BEFORE THEY WERE RACIST and the comment section is always blokes saying "CHIN UP TERRY, CANT SAY NOFFING THESE DAYS ANYWAY, BACK IN THE PUNK DAYS WE WERE FRIENDS WIV EVERYONE BACK THEN, WHITES, SCOTS, COLOUREDS, EVEYONE WAS WELCOME AND WE ALL GOT OUr HEADS KICKED IN EQUALLY :) ALL THE BEST KID"

[kngen]

I would have thought any hope for rehabilitation that first Skrewdriver album had would be very easily obliterated by that song on there about noncing

Heee! Yeah, that's a corker that has not aged well at all. Probably thought 'well, if it's good enough for the Rolling Stones ...'   

My favourite bit is the angry chastising of 'All the COUNCILLORS ... in BLACKPOOOOL!' Yeah! Stick it to them, Ian! Bloody fruit machines making a racket all the time.

Anyway I'm pretty sure J Mascis and Steve Albini have talked about liking that album as well for what it's worth

Many a punk rock luminary has stayed at my house and cooed in awe at a live video I've got (stolen from an old flatmate, just so you know) of them playing 'the WHITE NOISE FESTIVAL on St. Georges Day' (playing on a loading bay of a Croydon warehouse in front of a smattering of drunk idiots sieg heiling out of time - 50% of them with the wrong arm). It's not something I'm trying to impress them with. I'll have gone out to get more bevvy, or food for the band or something, and I'll come back to a band you'd think would be the last folk in the world to entertain such a thing sat enraptured around the TV while Hail the New Dawn crackles out of a tinny speaker.

They definitely inspire a morbid fascination - and moral equivocation - that I think only a few other bands can match (Burzum, Mayhem to name a couple). But, weirdly, I suppose it's because they CAN actually play music - no-one gives a shit about Squadron or Brutal Attack - because they, and hundreds like them, are absolutely fucking shite with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

[kngen]

I'm on a few punk vinyl/memorabilia trading sites on Facebook and there's always people flogging Skrewdriver stuff on there saying PLEASE NO COMMENTS CALLING ME A RACIST NONCE THIS WAS BEFORE THEY WERE RACIST and the comment section is always blokes saying "CHIN UP TERRY, CANT SAY NOFFING THESE DAYS ANYWAY, BACK IN THE PUNK DAYS WE WERE FRIENDS WIV EVERYONE BACK THEN, WHITES, SCOTS, COLOUREDS, EVEYONE WAS WELCOME AND WE ALL GOT OUr HEADS KICKED IN EQUALLY :) ALL THE BEST KID"

Uncannily accurate.

[holyzombiejesus]

I like how this thread title could be in General Bullshit.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Anybody mentioned that cuddly DJ Mark Radcliffe drummed for Skewdriver yet?

[king_tubby]

Fucking love them. Saw them at the Fenton in 2008 and going to Brude next month

Ah, that Fenton gig was fucking superb. The support chucking stage blood all over less so, I got covered, rushed in to Strawberry Fields next door to get cleaned up and the barman nearly shat it and called an ambulance.

The pre-covid gig at the Brude was also excellent. I should get tickets for this one.

[The Mollusk]

After two listens I'm massively enjoying this album. It's as close to the ugly and unhinged vibe of their first album Shallow as I think they've ever been, or at least as close as you could wish from a band approaching middle age with 20 years between that debut and the present day. Surly sardonic attitude pumped thick and greasy into burly hardcore tantrums.

Matt's sense of humour is still righteously on-point and he has mastered the art of comic bitching without ever sounding either whiny or preachy. It's like watching a drunk old dude in a pub presiding over his dartboard kingdom, sweaty and belligerent but still effortlessly trouncing anyone who dares to step up to the oche.

That being said, if I had to pick a weak point it would be Everywhere is Bad. It's not a bad song per se but the goofy slacker humour in the call and response verses doesn't really sit right with the ugly blunt force wit of the surrounding tracks. The weary resignation of Moving On however works great as a closing track and has a much stronger impact here than it did as a standalone single.

Gonna digest this some more in the next couple days but this is definitely better than Why Love Now and easily stands toe to toe with their best work.

[The Mollusk]

^ Disregard some of this bollocks. Everywhere is Bad is a great halfway point and obviously Moving On is not "weary resignation" at all.

I wrote a proper review of it this afternoon. Here:

Spoiler alert

The hotly anticipated sixth album from this century's greatest punk/noise rock outfit is here, and while it's probably as close to the ugly and unhinged vibe of debut album Shallow as they've ever been, it simultaneously brings a more balanced sensibility that the wonders of middle age have afforded them. Remarkably, Half Divorced sees Pissed Jeans not just revitalised but more focused and firing harder on all cylinders than they ever were before.

The beefed up production value of Why Love Now is thankfully present here too, but where WLN felt occasionally lacking in ideas or enthusiasm, this 30 minute slab of surly yet surprisingly accessible punk rock is tightly executed from start to finish. Over half the songs are less than 2 mins long and the boys barrel through the tracklist like starved animals, slowing only for the irreverent slacker call and response of "Everywhere is Bad" and the self-assured victory lap of the closer.

Matt Korvette's sense of humour is, of course, still righteously on-point: He's long since mastered the art of comic bitching without ever sounding preachy, but here his lyrics are fuelled by a more reflective attitude whilst remaining brutally funny. The usual wonderfully specific targets are shot to ribbons in tracks like "Helicopter Parent" and "(Stolen) Catalytic Converter", but the broad strokes of dismissal in "Anti-Sapio" and "Alive With Hate" perversely feel more like hardcore anthems of self-love. Nowhere does this hit harder than on the rousing closer "Moving On", with the band playing it straight as an arrow in an almost poetic "Moon Over Marin" way as Matt puts the bullshit firmly to one side and gives focus to what's most important in his life.

Seven years might seem like a long time to throw together half an hour of tunes, but Pissed Jeans have always been about keeping it real. It's important to make the time to look after yourself, and if self preservation culminates in music this good, I'll wait as long as it takes.

[close]

[Vitamin C]

Went into this cynically, feeling like they are a bit Jesus Lizard lite (I know everyone says that) but enjoyed the fuck out of it. Also, roared with laughter at "(Stolen) Catalytic Converter" as a song title, but only because this has happened to me.

[iamcoop]

It's interesting you make that comparison as TJL are one of my favourite bands and I've never really seen it myself.

I suppose "noisy dirge with a guy going a bit mental over the top of it" fits for both, but the TJL are like a tightly-coiled spring with a punishing rhythm section, whereas Pissed Jeans almost leak out of the speaker at you.

Anyway I hadn't realised just how different this album is to all their others at first, it's basically an old school hardcore record. There's almost none of that loose, dirgy, almost-Sabbath like swampy stuff on here, it's just break-neck hardcore.

I also have the greatest of respect for making people wait for seven years, only to drop an album that barely hits thirty minutes and contains a cover. That's very amusing to me.

[Goldentony]

liked Everywhere Is Bad myself, reminded me of a very sarcastic Rockin' In The USA by Kiss