[October 1st, 2008]

Pure Evil

[NEW LOUDNESS] Clocking in at a little over 22 minutes, the debut record from shit-hot local kids White Fang whizzes by so quickly you barely have time to blink an eye—or spot the influences. Pure Evil is actually far from its title—the kids of White Fang don’t enact harm to their instruments so much as they intend to. It’s a surprisingly assured record that distills its aesthetic down to easily digestible two-minute proto-punk nuggets. Instead of focusing solely on the gnar-thrash sonic onslaughts that characterize the band’s live shows, Pure Evil gets down to these kids’ inner Beat Happening.

The band’s songs are totally unbridled slabs of teenage cathartic energy—three chords, pounding floor toms and lots of designated, drug-addled group sing-alongs. Almost every note is out of place: Chords are flubbed, strings broken and horns mangled. “We’re Reborn” begins with the type of off-kilter noodling you’d expect from a C86 tape before gradually building into a jangly instrumental surf-rocker, and “Breakfast” is so naive and exuberant (“I woke up this morning and went upstairs for breakfast!”) you can’t help but thrash along. Pure Evil is the rare record where everything sounds like crap—only, you know, in a good way.

Dust & Stars

[NEW GROUPNESS] The inside cover to Reporter’s debut record Dust & Stars lists the three band members with the Queen-derived pseudonyms “Freddy,” “Brian” and “May”—a humorous gesture, no doubt, but also further evidence of a group looking to shed its former skin. For seven years, the trio trafficked in slightly arty post-punk under the moniker Wet Confetti, only to rebrand last fall with a new name and a more rocking sound. While Wet Confetti’s songs were often messy, complicated pieces, here things are kept decidedly uncluttered; mostly built around interlocking guitar lines, “Set Fire” and “The City Can Wait” retain the old incarnation’s weird charm while more accurately documenting its frantic live shows.

The one real downer with the record is that this caustic energy—always a strength with such a tight group—is often buried in swampy, distant production. “Battleship Island,” in particular, feels grounded by poor recording, taking the zip out of Alberta Poon and Dan Grazzini’s alternating verses. “I kind of felt like it would all just work out,” sings Grazzini on “It Could Work Out.” More often than not—like on the bouncy and incandescent “Take It Easy”—it does. MM.