Pissed Jeans, "Shallow" (Sub Pop)

Pissed Jeans, "Shallow" (Sub Pop)

Richard Murphy

Furious punk that everyone needs.

The music of Pissed Jeans is angry, to be sure, but it‰’s a particular kind of angry, the kind that comes after years of relentless cynicism, sexual frustration, and dead end day job existence, and then realizing that you‰’ve only got yourself to blame, but, hell, it‰’s all just a joke anyway.

On this reissue of the Allentown, Pennsylvania‰’s quartet 2005 reissue, Shallow, Pissed Jeans paint a violently apathetic picture of day to day drudgery with some of the most deliberately feel-bad, sludgy, and chaotic punk music this side of Flipper.

The first five seconds of the record epitomize the entire ideology of Pissed Jeans, with a quick four count on a hi hat, a blast of feedback, two guitar chords distorted beyond recognition, and Matt Kosloff screaming “IIIIIIIIIIIII’M SIIIICKKKK‰Û. At its most vicious, Shallow, is the sonic equivalent of a car crash combined with being hit with a bad a wet leaves, and the music is, at times, just as structured as that sounds, with the band perpetually sounding as if it‰’s going to just fall apart at any moment.

For as dark and loud as I‰’m making this record out to be, it‰’s not without its straight up catchy moments, like “Boring Girls‰Û, a single chord, hypnotically entrancing, and brutally sarcastic take on power pop, or “Ashamed of My Cum‰Û, a track you may find yourself humming in public if weren‰’t for being so goddamn blunt about exactly what it you think it‰’s about.

There‰’s no subtlety here and there doesn‰’t need to be. This is a blistering listen of music that I truly hope you can‰’t relate to, and it‰’s fucking fascinating.

RIYL: Big Black, Metz, Ceremony, the opposite of Sum 41
Recommended Tracks: 1, 2, 5, 7