Last week, we wrote a novella about the new blink-182 album, and while it did feel briefly therapeutic to rip the bandaid off and deal with this prison sentence we’ve made for ourselves, I’m still getting DMs on every platform begging for new episodes. Not only that, but these fucking guys released two more songs to try and scam their way to number 1 on the charts. They’re never going to stop until someone stops them.
Let’s talk about some other stuff instead.
Open City “Bobby”
Sam: I am overly fond of telling this story, but a few (many thousands of) years ago at Fest, Rachel from Bridge and Tunnel broke her hand (they played guitar) and the band ended up doing an all-covers set that revealed Rachel was secretly destined to front a hardcore band. Open City is the band that eventually delivered on that promise and their latest album, Hands in the Honey Jar, is yet another incredibly sick and “pummelling” collection of tunes that recall only a lil bit of the other bands that its best-known members also play in (look, it’s Dan Yemin), but Rachel style is totally their own and escapes easy lazy references. Glad I made this about Fest, though!
Jos: Before I click, I just want to say that the word “hardcore” has never been more elastic in its meaning, and people continue to fight and gatekeep one another over everything from slight variations to completely nonsensical differentiations, in some sort of post-modern dance that is even more confusing than trying to define words like “punk.” So it’s interesting to me what version of hardcore Sam is referencing here. Okay he’s right it’s Fest-adjacent, kinda melodic Deathwish webstore music, the kinda tunes that came out after Level Plane was skramz and before Temporary Residence went full post-rock.
Michael the Band “So Right”
Sam: I gather these Mikes are bigtime Seattle studio boys, working on albums for punk-adjacent bands that I don’t really like myself but DO seem to be enjoyed by others which is always nice. But this is very good and nice to me. Very Gabriel, very McDonald, just a warm, nice hook that I want to tuck into for a while. I feel like the typical zest for 80s sounds never included that precise emphatic “here comes the chorus” hit that defines this song, and I hope I never hear it again because this is just enough!
Jos: Sam just said nice like 50 times, he’s definitely hiding that someone in or related to this band is on his mortal enemies for life list. Michael the Band reminds me of that thing called like The Dan Band or something that was in, I wanna say, Old School… but also was on, I wanna say, SideOneDummy or something? I would love to get a lobotomy so I could forget all this stuff. Anyway this sounds like an Evangelical Christian trying to do Brandon Flowers solo stuff or Passion Pit or something. Like a guy who still says “I got my skinnies on!” about his jeans.
Evian Christ “Yxguden” (ft. Bladee)
Jos: The most upsetting thing about being visited by our old frenemies blink-182 last week was that there was so much other cool shit coming out at the same time. Like this Evian Christ and Bladee song. You know I’m gonna post about either of these artists when some new shit drops — so much so that I’d love to get put on some kind of sinister pay-to-play marketing budget at a major label. But this song in particular is really sweet with some adorbz PC Music vibes and Bladee’s silly little vocals. I’m kinda sick of the 2014 Adult Swim 3d art gimmick, well I was until I saw the snowman making a pizza. That’s sick as hell. What a cute lil tune. And the rest of the Evian Christ album sounds like some expensive ass contemporary art gallery video installation that has like immersive lasers and a placard about challenging notions of space. I love that shit.
Sam: After Josiah’s last Evian Christ promo cycle I fully intended to listen to the full album but I never did. Maybe this time it will stick! I really like this but I need to be honest (pretty sure I also said this last Bladee cycle) — I have absolutely no idea what Bladee is. It seems like a joke people like Josiah love to make but it’s so confusingly coded, like I can’t tell if liking Bladee is cool or normie or “cool” or not cool at all or what. And what does their presence here mean in the context of all those absent signifiers? I could easily find this out but I enjoy Bladee just being a minor character in the Josiah universe I am only dimly aware of.
Wilco “Infinite Surprise”
Jos: As I get older, I think I’m just straight up becoming a Wilco head. I have always been well aware of them and tangentially interested, but they just keep sounding better and better to me. They’re almost like the more-real old-guy indie inverse of the National. Where the National dress like lawyers, probably smell like Le Labo, and are collaborating with Taylor Swift or the Federal Reserve Ballet (I assume that’s a thing, right?), Wilco seem like they’re stinky dads who drink coffee from lid-less styrofoam cups and drive Volvos that have dubious mufflers. The new album absolutely whips, with little guitar flourishes and delicious drum hits that each feel like pitter patters of first snow. This song has a beautiful little melody that builds naturally (no quiet-loud-quiet vibes) and concludes with blown-out fireworks. I love it!
Sam: Time has been kind to Wilco. I’ll never listen to anything beyond Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but I will never not listen to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I just can’t imagine needing any more Wilco in my life than I get from that album. There’s something funny about genuinely loving something front-to-back and having zero interest in any other output from the same artist, but that’s just how I feel about Wilco. I think it’s sweet that Josiah thinks that Wilco dads are any less annoying than National dads, though. Wilco dads are in fact much worse because they insist on wearing a denim jacket all the time as a personality. Wilco: why bother!
Green Day “The American Dream Is Killing Me”
Jos: If X (formerly known as Twitter, for those keeping track) is just all gruesome images of ethnic cleansing and exposés of media complicitness, Instagram was an endless parade of clips from the When We Were Young Festival. Which, at the risk of sounding glib, was also incredibly depressing to look at. There’s something about seeing a band called like The Universe In Black and White playing their “hit” at 2 p.m. and then a Madden brother commenting a fire emoji on it. Hell, the members of blink have started saying “what the fuck is up Denny’s.” All of these people give me the ick so bad now. But at least we can leave it to Green Day to rewrite and rehash the same song they’ve been doing for the last 20 years. Refusing to learn lessons about satire, subtlety, or context, their new song literally includes the line “we’re pedophiles.” There are all kinds of funny dumb-clever parts (they also sing “TikTok and taxes,” instead of, I guess, “death and taxes”), but they also literally do sing the phrase “we’re pedophiles.” And sure they are doing some kind of social commentary. But what a crazy thing to sing in a song in 2023!
Sam: It’s pretty funny that Green Day’s earnest Gen X-ness is going to age better than any of their peers’ cringey attempt at relevance eh. One day we’ll look back on “NO TRAP BEATS” and think “Green Day was right.” Much like the recent U2 song that Josiah made me listen to, I respect how bland and unambitious this is, but maybe that’s just their attempt at getting you to put your guard down before dropping the big p-line. What on earth do they mean by it? I have been looking at the lyrics for almost a minute and it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. Green Day please never change we need you.
Sam: Of all the evil born from the pod, me occasionally “DJing” has to be the most societally damaging. But since the world is already broken beyond repair, I’m back at Dundas Video with Chayne to play the Judgement Night soundtrack in its entirety along with several remixes and covers of “Dragula.” I can’t promise it will be good, but I can promise it will be fun (for me).
Jos: If any pod fans end up going to this, please make Sam answer for the Marit Stiles guest spot.