Pissed Jeans – Why Love Now

‘I used to play punk,’ sneers Matt Korvette, as though daring himself not to laugh scornfully. ‘Now I’m just singing the blues.’ It’s an odd way to characterise his band’s musical stylings: had the sludged-out hardcore of 2013 album Honeys dropped during noise rock’s 1980s crystallisation period, it’s not a stretch to suggest it’d now be regarded as one of the genre’s most sacred texts.

Happily, this follow-up finds them operating at a similarly scintillating capacity, grinding down on the ugliness buried in the mundanity of modern life and crushing it into the wreckage of metal and post-punk. Meanwhile, Korvette contorts his face into a twisted grin and half-growls, half-spits devilish venom flecked with bon mots and primal howls, like George Carlin fed on a diet of raw meat and razorblades.

Little escapes his ire, but for once on a PJ album, the best words come from elsewhere – author Lindsay Hunter shows up to pick a very macho grossness apart on I’m A Man, and does so hilariously. But with the band raging hard and smartly throughout, Korvette still gets some memorable gags in there. ‘I’ve been described as good,’ goes The Bar Is Low. ‘Some have even said great / What have I done / To deserve such a fate?’ Keep cranking out records this good, dude. We’ll figure it out for you.

Listen to: Love Without Emotion, I'm A Man