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Usually hip-hopping hand-in-hand alongside age is wisdom, along all that introspective crap that seems to drive many rockers into a state of maturity that just doesn’t make for a tongue-tied, eardrum-pounding earful. The tales of debauchery and madness are what keeps us crawling back for a sonic brawl that leaves us all bruised and heaving…but still somehow begging for more. Pissed Jeans haven’t backed out of the ring after nearly a decade together and are bludgeoning forth with full force on their fourth studio release, Honeys. Don’t be fooled by the title—this album is anything but sweet.
It’s hard to believe that this band of punk rockers emerged from the same concrete muse that inspired Billy Joel to pen the hyper-romantic sugar cube “Allentown.” It wasn’t long, though, before the quartet was forced to migrate outside of their tiny orb of a punk scene to Philadelphia seven years ago. Still clinging onto their smoggy, proletariat roots, Pissed Jeans still took a shining to Boston’s well-poised carelessness and yard thrashing brutality, and it shows in the thudding drop of Honeys. While they still house the same boiling intensity, Pissed Jeans have governed their focus. Still unrestricted by the notion of a full-fledged concept, the band is rather harnessed by a grand scheme—a really fucking loud one.
“Bathroom Laughter,” a fitting lead single, jumpstarts the insanity with a swift kick to the gut with Matt Korvette’s guttural rips accompanied by guitar riffs boasting the viscosity of crude oil. The track unfolds into a visceral tale of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting an unwelcome eyeful of the underbelly of strangers’ lives, those little snippets that we like to repress into some Freudian stew to either be left untouched, or self-combust at any inopportune moment. Korvette rips into his lower register, growling each line and shrieking in terror, as he goes toe-to-toe with the terror of impending adulthood.
Sliding in for a high-energy follow-up is “Chain Worker,” a short-circuiting lament of dissatisfaction with the precincts of the blue-collar brotherhood. Tension steadily climbs to discomforting altitudes with wheezing guitars punctuated with brutal surges of electrified angst. The song vigorously ebbs and flows from dark metal influences to sarcastic, spoken sarcastic jibes at capitalistic strongholds with lyrics like “I am a chain worker caught in an infinite loop, like a skipping compact disc. My chain provides me with safety.” Korvette stands acutely at a prophet of the people angle without preaching down to his factory-beaten camarades.
Proving that you can still be a gang of badass thrashers while still flaunting that fur-trimmed, funky backbone, “You’re Different (In Person)” begins with an unexpected funk flare and a joyfully syncopated drum fill; but the dark clouds quickly wrinkle the technicolored sky. Bradley Fry rolls out some dynamic guitar chops, working his way across the fret board with confident buoyancy. “Cafeteria Food” cuts in as a starkly divergent follow-up, with bombastic discord and prophet of doom vocals. Bassist Randy Huth doesn’t miss a vein-tugging beat throughout the vicious spiral allows for some hard-fought recovery time from the intense brain volley that preceded.
“Loubs” steers the could-have-been romantic monologue into an eerie exposition of dissatisfaction. Korvette takes sputtering lines of blues-inspired vocals for a spin as he continues to gnaw through a hefty mouthful of cathartic gristle. After nearly five minutes of the defiant elopement of thrasher punk and Springsteen social consciousness, listeners are left nursing a bourbon-soaked head spin.
Inching toward the twelve-track record’s close, “Health Plan” is reminiscent of Black Flag’s gear grinding metal velocity, incorporating a bass-heavy Rollins growl. Sean McGuiness stabs into his drum kit with splintering fury as a hovering black balloon bursting with hardcore nectar looms above. Despite its heavy topic matter, the track is disturbingly catchy—not in the typical singsong hook fever, but in a gnawing persistence that is simply impossible to ignore.
Not nearly as opaque as their past releases of blunt-edged grindcore cocktails, Pissed Jeans seem to have reached a point of convergence with the old, new and unexpected. Matt Korvette’s vocals are much more scathing and harken back to the original punk sentiments and scowls set by the likes of Ian MacKaye while delving into issues as browbeaten as sexual dejection and factory fever. Honeys isn’t an instant classic, but rather a slow rolling champion, like a nagging thought just decaying at your composure until it reigns supreme. Honeys is just one brain stew you’ll just have to try for yourself.
Pissed Jeans – Honeys tracklist:
- “Bathroom Laughter”
- “Chain Worker”
- “Romanticize Me”
- “Vain In Costume”
- “You’re Different (In Person)”
- “Cafeteria Food”
- “Something About Mrs. Johnson”
- “Male Gaze”
- “Cat House”
- ” Loubs”
- “Health Plan”
- “Teenage Adult”
