Cut of the Day: Old Growth, "Bloody Knuckle Beach"

By Casey Jarman

Old-school Portland rockers have often complained to me that the current PDX music scene is too polished, too acoustic and too twee. They miss rock and roll. I get that. Portland could fill an entire ark of folk-pop sub-genres, and even with the thriving local metal scene, good ol' fashion riffage can be tough to find.


Old Growth sounds more like the Portland of 15 years ago than the Portland of today. Crunchy and often D-tuned (and, occasionally, de-tuned), this trio has that rare combination of good ears for melody and the burning desire to completely destroy those ears by playing loud as fuck. New disc Out of the Sand and Into the Streets is a characteristically distorted and engaging effort that finds the band tackling wild, Refused-esque hardcore ("Hey Young"), upbeat throwback punk ("Sandy") and the bowel-shaking organic pre-grunge it is probably best known for ("Bloody Knuckle Beach"). 


"Bloody Knuckle Beach" is an exercise in juxtaposition: The instrumentation here drags everything so far down into the mud that the listener expects the vocals to growl and roar, but John Magnifico's lead vocals hold some distant promise—and they really start to soar when his bandmates chip in for harmonies. I don't know where Bloody Knuckle Beach is—a particularly violent surfing spot, I'd imagine—but all Magnifico wants is to get back there. The desire to return, both physically and emotionally, to somewhere in the past that holds more promise than the crushing responsibility of the present is a common theme in Old Growth's songs (both Magnifico and bassist Luke Clemente sing about it on the new disc), but here it's especially aching. By the songs final sludgy chorus, Magnifico sounds like a tired kid throwing a tantrum as his parents drag him off to bed: "I can feel the saltwaterrrrrrr."


I can't think of many local bands that rock this hard while still weaving smart melodies into their music. Red Fang and the Thermals come to mind. I've long been of the belief that Old Growth deserves the same level of adoration as those bands (they rank in my personal top 10 of contemporary Portland bands). Maybe this excellent new disc will get them there.

SEE IT: Old Growth releases Out of the Sand and Into the Streets (which comes on gorgeous marbled vinyl) on Thursday, Sept. 22 at East End. 

WWeek 2015

Casey Jarman

Casey Jarman

Casey Jarman is a freelance editor and writer based in East Portland, Oregon. He has served as Music Editor at Willamette Week and Managing Editor at The Believer magazine, where he remains a contributing editor. He is currently working on his first book. It's about death.

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