Chicagoan band DADDY’S BOY has returned with another full-length after a few years away from the studio. The eleven-song Four Hombres LP is a chaotic rock’n’roll vision of the daily struggle. High-speed rhythms surge beneath vocals that occasionally remind me of PROPAGANDHI, but also have a unique stream-of-consciousness delivery with lyrics deriding modern development. Fuzzy guitars, jazzy song structures, and indignation against AI and data centers—sign me up.
“Questionably hardcore” is how DADDY’S BOY describe themselves. Maybe it’s not as much questionable, but more they’re playing a kind of hardcore that’s left of the current center. The music on here isn’t invested in having the big breakdown payoff for the crowd killers or trying in vain to keep up with what’s fashionable. Being yourself is hard enough and good enough, and the band unquestionably does that. DADDY’S BOY whips up weighty, scrambled layers of noise, the songs built on back-and-forth movements of tension and release. The bass gives the music some ballast, as the guitar and drums are pulling their leashes in chaotic directions. The vocals are under threat of being buried beneath the fray and I wish they took up a little more space, as the lyrics are stronger and more lucid than most right now—lived-in screeds against work, capital, cops, and all the other failing systems crumbling at the moment.
