A year ago, this site published my review of Rohnert Park, the then-new album from San Francisco based hardcore act Ceremony. I cited the similarities of that record with those of comparatively more popular acts Fucked Up and Pissed Jeans, two groups that record for “indie” labels that are distinct from those owned by the hardcore subculture. It appears I was not alone in that observation, as Matador Records has announced Ceremony has signed with them, effectively leaving hardcore imprint Bridge Nine. Artists leave smaller labels for bigger ones all the time, but this instance potentially signals a nascent trend in indie music: “popular” hardcore.

Unlike pop punk, so peppy and easy-to-digest, the kind of hardcore I’m referring to here is often scowling and anti-social, taking cues from both the subgenre’s unglamorous seventies/eighties originators as well as that same period’s “no wave” artisans. King Of Jeans, Pissed Jeans’ exceptional 2009 album for Sub Pop–yes, that Sub Pop–, was a dark and furious romp showered with #whitepeopleproblems galore (Pitchfork ranking: 8.3). Ceremony’s Matador labelmates Fucked Up just unveiled a rock opera (8.6, with “best new music” status) that has been received by discerning listeners as positively as their breakthrough The Chemistry Of Common Life (8.8, “best new music”). Even oldtimers are getting a second chance, as Black Flag/Circle Jerks alum Keith Morris is experiencing with OFF!, an invigorating quartet that dropped the SST-referencing The First Four EPs compilation (, “best new music”) on snarlingly irreverent and hipster-centric Vice Records. The latest act that Pitchfork is fawning over? Scandinavian punk teens Iceage (8.4, best new music). Taking all that in account, Matador’s snapping up Ceremony makes logical business sense.

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Produced by Alex Newport of Fudge Tunnel and Nailbomb, Pissed Jeans’ King Of Jeans landed the #4 spot on my Best Albums of 2009 list. Citing a series of things Pissed Jeans vocalist could–but wont bother to–do in order to better his life, opening track “False Jesii Pt 2″ is a jagged punky noise rock anthem that promotes sloth as a form of rebellion. Fittingly, its bizarre, sometimes creepy video was only just released last month. Featuring the band barely performing in some sort of auditorium or gymnasium with young women dancing around them to what seems to be entirely different music, it’s not exactly the sort of promotional clip to garner the Allentown, Pennsylvania band any new fans. Not that they care.

Pissed Jeans’ upcoming 7″ single Sam Kinison Woman / The L Word will be out on October 26 and you can preorder it from Sub Pop.

-GS

Punk is the domain of youth. Over the years its initial rebellious edge has been largely filed down to a nub with the palatable smoothness of an infant’s spoon, yet the fact remains that, even co-opted and corrupted by vapidity and consumerism, it remains young people’s music. Some choose to argue pointlessly and endlessly over the “authenticity” of the poppier strain that one might hear on the Vans Warped Tour, willfully blind to the cold reality: definition no longer matters when a sound becomes this diluted by culture. Outright intolerance of the current state of affairs feels appropriate, yet the alternatives for aging punk fans are tragic and few. Some shell out Ticketmaster-inflated fees to see the retroactively hailed nostalgia acts of their choosing lurch out onto massive stages to run through “the hits” much like the classic rock dinosaurs these very same revolutionaries once disdained. Others choose to support the obscure, forgotten 80s band playing miserable bars a few miles down the road from the middle of nowhere. Lastly, one can stay at home, venturing out only to collect even more irrelevant records for hoarding and occasional listening. To some half-smart kid from out there in America desperate for something to rebel against, it’s ideal. For a grown man like me, living the domestic life with all of its inherent pitfalls and pratfalls, punk is sentimental escapism. Nothing more.

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Pissed Jeans’ King Of Jeans will be in stores tomorrow. It is the best album I’ve heard this year. I’ll be reviewing it here later this week.

Also: download a free MP3 of “False Jesii Part 2″.

-GS

[Gary Suarez is in crisis mode. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

For those of you still skeptical of whether or not Pissed Jeans are worth your time, your precious hero Kim Thayil (of the world-famous TADGARDEN) digs the group enough to appear in a photo with one of its members. (Also shown: Sub Pop Records co-founder Jonathan Poneman.) And if such minor metal celebrity proximity doesn’t persuade you, perhaps one of the band’s newest songs will. Replete with the raucous riffage and humid sleaze that made 2007′s Hope For Men so irresistible, “False Jesii Part II” is the first track from the forthcoming King Of Jeans record and you can download it for free from Sub Pop directly. This is probably the album I’m most excited about this year, and I really hope you can take the time out of your busy Internet schedule of masturbating and expressing butthurt over our 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far to give it a listen before King Of Jeans drops on August 18th.

-GS

[Gary Suarez will not be attending the Michael Jackson memorial event. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually mismanages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

Hi everybody! I’m back from my two week vacation! Did you miss me? What, you didn’t know I was gone? Fuck you in the face!

Well anyway, I missed some of you, mainly the hideously unattractive and socially awkward noise rock aficionados that read my stupid column for jerks. So it gives me great pleasure to report that Pissed Jeans will released its third album on August 18. King Of Jeans, the group’s second full-length for Sub Pop, is the follow-up to 2007′s Hope For Men, a damned modern classic of sleazy gutter-level rock inspired and emboldened by the tradition of David Yow and The Jesus Lizard. Though I have yet to hear any of this new material, I anticipate nothing short of fucking awesomeness from tracks with lascivious titles like “Human Upskirt” and “Request for Masseuse”.

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