Hardcore has a template–musically and lyrically–which is why it’s always so gratifying when artists in that scene take this potentially limiting construct and do something unique with it. Dangers, a Los Angeles-based hardcore act, does just that on Messy, Isn’t It?, their potent and thought-provoking new album. Fronted by the eloquent Al Brown and featuring Graf Orlock’s Justin Smith, the band’s approach to the sound pops, fizzles, and explodes with eccentricity, angularity, and, yes, brutality. But don’t just take my word for it; TAKE A LEAK!

[this download is no longer available]

“Stay At Home Mom” opens the album with a fucking scathing indictment of shoddy parenting and the disaffected children it yields. I’ve posted the lyrics below (along with a few tour dates) so you can scream and rage along with Dangers. Like what you hear? Then why not order the LP/CD combo right now before it sells out?!

“Stay-At-Home Mom”
Why didn’t you kill yourself today?
What cross, what coupon, what cathode ray
Put the joie de vivre in your diseased heart?
How Anne Hathaway
How Peg Bundy thou art
Hey, sugar:
Prove to me that the air you breathe
Wasn’t better served by the leaves of a tree.
You’re but a breeder, tax break receiver
With menopause sweats
A TV tray and a mosh pit son
Who wastes the marrow of his bones
Jumping into these drums.
Please tell him: Don’t stand so close to me.
See, I know your children because I’ve been your children
And us children, hopeful children
‘Cause we may sing these songs of protest,
Cast our ballots too, forego meat and
Ride our bikes and get our band’s stupid tattoo
But it means nothing – nothing – when we get eaten by the sun.
Que sera, Que sera
For, whatever there is will soon be all gone.
So what’s wrong with a song
That asks wherefore and why have you lived this long?
A purpose? You want a reason?
Stop believing or stop needing the answers.
There are no answers except the sun, the sun, the sun.
While you sit on your couch
And wait up for your boy
We’re polluting his mind with this

March 12th: 924 Gilman – Berkeley, CA (w/ Sabertooth Zombie, Drowning w/ our Anchors, Owen Hart, and Power)
March 13th: Fresno, CA
March 14th: Los Angeles, CA
March 18th: Victoria, BC
March 19th: Vancouver, BC
March 20th: Seattle, WA
March 21st: Tiki House
March 25th: The Smell – Los Angeles (w/ Narrows)

-GS

[Gary Suarez usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. He is also quitting Twitter at the end of the week]