Pissed Jeans
★★★★
Half-Divorced
SUB POP. CD/DL/LP
Debt, parenthood and catalytic converters: scabrous noisers sing the suburban blues.
Midlife crises await all who live long enough, even repulsively named Pennsylvanian ‘pigfuck’ revivalists Pissed Jeans. Their sixth LP ditches the savvy anti-machoism and perversity of earlier outings to vent the frustrations of punks-turneddads who, as the title suggests, are struggling to acclimatise to domesticity. Possibly the only hardcore LP to rail at seatbelt alarms and “helicopter parenting”, Half-Divorced’s bougie targets are nevertheless dispatched with extreme prejudice, accompanied by a brutish clatter that pairs the bloody-minded, avant flourishes of late Black Flag to Oi! anthemics. As such, the LP’s worldview is best articulated by Everywhere Is Bad, a withering, TV Party-esque list-song finding fault with pretty much every location across the globe (“Helsinki? Too cold/Rome? Catholiccontrolled!”). But Pissed Jeans’ fist-pumping tunes, thrilling noise and acidic wit ensure their permanent bummer is always a good time.