The Ear Bleeds – “Public Nuisance Split EP”
I saw, Nate, the singer of this band a few weeks ago at the Midway.
I knew him from my favorite local Oi band in the few years past, DestrOi, which he verified were not a band anymore. I assumed they weren’t as it’s been a while since I’ve seen them listed on a bill.
I first saw DestrOI at an Oi show at the Cambridge Moose Lodge. There were about six bands playing that night, and they were very low on the billing.
But I was very impressed by them, more so than any other band on the show.
I went home and listened to their bandcamp and by the next weekend, not only was I submitting a review on that show but their bandcamp, as well.
So, Nate explains to me that The Ear Bleeds are a band that he has sung with before, and though he is from the Salem, MA area- the rest of the band is from Maine. A state I’m finding more and more great bands from.
He describes his band as more punk than Oi, though they use both those tags on their bandcamp. Seeing them live I’d describe them as that nice spot where punk, hardcore and Oi meet in the pit and smash into each other, glancing off of each other and leaving with all of the best of each style intact.
Or, in less fancy terms, taking the best aspects of punk, hardcore and Oi and creating some truly wild, hardcore Oi punk music!
Let’s disregard all that and give a listen until our ears start to bleed:
With some hard, grinding, “going through the wood chipper” guitar, “Hell In Mind” kicks off with a unique drum intro and a walloping, bashing beat. It’s followed by the barking, intense vocals- emotive and challenging, totally in your face. The chorus slows in tempo but not power and there’s an instrumental breakdown that ends with a great, slicing Johnny Thunders like lick. For some reason this song makes me think of Ian MacKaye fronting Motorhead. I think I’m way off base with that notion, but I think I hit the target when I say- this is a great, fucking great, fucking song.
With a bass lick sounding like it’s off a psychedelic, garage rock band from the sixties that is followed by some disruptive, discordant guitar- “In America” starts off with the lyrics- “Here here we are, In America. Slaving away, in America.” The feeling is early West Coast punk like Black Flag, Circle Jerks but there’s also a sixties like chord progression in the chorus. I know, it feels like, I’ve mentioned “sixties” sixties times in this songs’ review.
But this is early, purely, potent punk. Not sure I like very much in America at this point, but I love everything about this song- take it or leave it!
“Police State” is a cover of a song by Special Duties, an early, kind of obscure, early British punk band. This bands’ version is a bit faster and rocks just as hard, if not more, than the original. And it’s fun to listen to an American band annunciate the chorus as “Po-lease state,” just like an English bloke might.
The Ear Bleeds are a band that captures and represents nicely, well- maybe nicely is not the best adjective LOL. But they capture the sound of the early punk and spirit of ’77 that I was privileged to hear and see.
And though, a lot of people probably feel that punk is one of the “easiest music to play.” I can vow to the fact that there’s always only a handfulof bands that I write about that truly play punk music to me, to my ears. I write about a lot of bands, and I think all of them are really good but fewof them produce the sound I recognize as truly punk.
The Ear Bleeds are one of those few bands that sound like punk to me. And one can dissect the lyrics, critique the music, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me.
‘Cause when I get shivers up my spine, or feel the hairs on my arms start to stand up- then I know it’s for real, it’s what I want to hear, what I want to listen to and there’s nothing that could change that for me.
And The Ear Bleeds are that, are pure punk to me.
(Slimedog)
