Sub/Shop Democatessen cassette
Off the bat, the quality and quantity of music on this release makes me think this can’t possibly qualify as a demo, even though it has an excellent name for one. Hailing from Richmond, VA, the band is composed of veterans of a slew of bands in and around Richmond, and the level of experience certainly shows. What we have here is post-hardcore, but not in the ethereal, spacy, heavy realm that the label has been pulled towards in the last decade or so. The band harkens back to where the genre was in the ’90s, specifically where bands like STATE OF THE NATION and SENSE FIELD were crafting rock-centered, punk-feeling intelligent music. There is a clear foundation here with DINOSAUR JR.-type angularity, but just like post-hardcore itself, it’s more complex to nail down a direct comparison among the many places their inspiration and influences probably came from. A record like this will certainly yield different things with each listen, and personally, I’m most of the way to being 100% on board with this band’s brand of extremely well-thought-out rock music. The songwriting is mature and avoids falling into musical tropes, getting surprisingly clever to put hooks into your brain with the more melodic moments (album closer “Negative Discourse” could easily be a lost TEXAS IS THE REASON track), but also letting you down in just the right way when going into some really off-the-beaten-path passages. Post-hardcore/punk for when you want to engage and not just listen to something.