Feb. 06, 2013 - Issue #903: Moment by moment
Honeys
Pissed Jeans {recordings_bands_mg} Honeys {/recordings_bands_mg}
Sub Pop,
4
If there's a trend in contemporary music that I welcome above all others, it's mundane subject matter (a couple years ago I might have said cowbell, but we all gotta move on). Credit card debt and cubicle work are far more relatable than Brixton riots or robots that enslave the earth as part of a dystopian future. Even the various permutations of love, lust and longing—while relatable—are played out after nearly a century of pop music.Take, for example, the track "Cafeteria Food" off of Pissed Jeans' latest album, Honeys. Could there be anything more commonplace than complaining about the project manager at your office? And who hasn't taken a daytime fantasy about their boss too far, dreaming about being informed via intra-office email that the "big time broker" who always has a cruel word for his office mates has died? It's in the specificity of the fantasy—"Stick figure family on the back of your car / You know I find that to be rude"—and in the way it taps into pop culture—"You're dead / You died / And I'm feeling like I'm 'Not the Father'"—that sets it apart from punk songs that fight against "the man" without specifying exactly which man we're talking about.
The album continues on in this vein, taking the most routine tasks and mundane features of early adulthood and calling them out in a way that elucidates how ridiculous and funny life can become. On "Health Plan," singer Matt Korvette screams that his secret is to "Stay away from doctors." On "Teenage Adult" he stabs at the responsibility-shirking generation of 30-year-old children known as "millennials," singing, "You haven't changed in 15 years / But still, you're past your prime."
Honeys is not set apart simply by the lyrics or the subject matter, however: it's the tightest set of jams Pissed Jeans has put out to date. The band has long been willing to wallow in feedback, to let a song devolve into a steaming mass of noise but, on Honeys, Pissed Jeans reins in some of those qualities to put forth a more-focused effort. It loses none of the effect or the catharsis of loud guitars and distortion-soaked tones, but it gains an immediacy that is more satisfying.
With only a single track that breaches the four-minute mark, Honeys is like a pointed stick in your ear. It's like a truck without a muffler zooming past your bedroom at night, a riot of noise that wakes you from a light sleep and is gone before you can even rub your eyes. In plenty of ways, the un-muffled truck and this album deliver a similar message: dealing with annoying assholes is a big part of being an adult.
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