Hope for Men
Pissed Jeans
(Sub Pop)
Some guys come home from the office, remove the tie, kick off the shoes and spend time with the wife and kids. The fellas from Pissed Jeans are different. They finish with the cubical farm — lead singer Matt Korvette is a claims adjuster — and proceed to create a paroxysmal brand of punk that seethes with deranged aggression. The place they make this music is Allentown, the bleak Pennsylvania factory town made famous by Billy Joel. The band's publicity material is quick to tout their working-class background.
Hope For Men sounds like it was recorded on lo-fi equipment in a dank basement by men who like to gobble Slim Jims, drink R.C. Cola and gross each other out with bodily functions. Feedback-intensive guitar screeches crash around guttural vocals that detail the singer's hatred for pretty much everything the 9-5 grind has to offer. Spoken-word bits offer a glimpse into the mind of a madman whose idea of "Scrapbooking" isn't the same as your aunt's. On "My Bed," the album's seven-minute-plus finale, Black Sabbath riffs drive home a crude lyric that careens from betrayal to sexual frustration. All the while, the listener is led to believe that the musicians have a sense of humor about their psychotic outbursts — but who knows?
Formerly called Unrequited Hard-On and before that the Gate Crashers, Pissed Jeans' debut album, Shallow, came out in 2005 on the tiny imprint Parts Unknown. The newly released Hope for Men is a product of Sub Pop (early Nirvana and Soundgarden, The Postal Service, The Shins), which means in certain circles, it's already a must-own. 2.5 stars —Wade Tatangelo
Live in Dublin
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN WITH THE SESSIONS BAND
(Columbia)
If you'd been one of the lucky lads and lasses to have stopped 'round the pub for a few pints, then walked up to the hall to catch this show, it may well have been one of the more momentous concerts you'd ever seen. Captured live on this two-disc set, though, you really, really have to like Springsteen's large-ensemble folk free-for-all to appreciate all two-plus hours. Backed by 17 musicians playing banjos, fiddles, accordion, acoustic guitars, steel guitar, a bevy of horns, percussion and more, Springsteen romps through 23 songs — a mixture of traditionals and reworked originals — that put the Irish crowd in a frenzy. The band combines infectious abandon with precision — a feat in itself. Bruce plays the gregarious ringleader, strumming on his acoustic and bellowing out tunes like "Old Dan Tucker," "The Saint's Go Marching In" (as a ballad), "Erie Canal," "Jesse James" — and from his own canon: radically reworked versions of "Atlantic City (banjo-driven), "If I Should Fall Behind" (a mountain-music waltz), "Blinded By the Light" (ska-esque) and several others. Springsteen and the Sessions Band play a kind of stylistic mash-up that incorporates Celtic, Cajun, boogie, bluegrass, ballads, New Orleans, country two-steps, gospel and just about any other iteration of folk/roots you can name. Live in Dublin is also available on a DVD; it brings you a bit closer to the overflowing energy in the room that night. 3.5 stars —Eric Snider
Seeds
MARTIN SEXTON
(Kitchen Table)
Pressed for a categorization, I guess you'd have to call Martin Sexton a singer/songwriter. But though he usually strums an acoustic guitar and writes tunes in the acoustic pop realm, as a singer he busts the mold. He possesses a passionate, deeply soulful voice with plenty of gospel and blues accents. Sexton has a canny way of delivering a lyric, telling a story through tone, attitude and subtle inflections. In terms of material, Seeds can be hit-and-miss: Some of the songs that tend toward whimsy ("How Far I've Come," "Goin' to the Country") verge on gimmickry. But when Sexton dives fully into one of his more penetrating numbers, it can be a transcendent experience. The album's best tune, "There Go I," is blues backed only by an acoustic guitar; Sexton pulls out his whole bag of emotive ammo, especially some effortless slides into a spine-tingling falsetto. (martinsexton.com) 3.5 stars —ES
