GENRE | WHITE-COLLAR BLUES
VERDICT | CATHARTIC RELEASE
RELEASE DATE | 8.18.09
LABEL | SUB POP
WHITEDENIM.COM/PISSEDJEANS
Before this album, this Allentown, Pa., noise-rock crew was more known for their songs about ice cream, scrapbooking and guitars that sounded like they were on the fritz. King of Jeans is much more powerful in that everything is dangerously focused into a black metal-meets-Black Flag roar. Vocalist Matt Korvette has undergone a similar transition, from another raving frontman to one of the truly terrifying singers of today’s generation, an heir to David Yow of The Jesus Lizard’s bizzaro vocalist throne. But while the Lizard were more concerned with the twisted and murderous, Pissed Jeans tackle the mundane, with Korvette’s narrator possessing a hilarious amount of white-collar naïveté—perhaps a parody of his own day job as an insurance claims adjuster. All of the songs are delivered with such gritted-teeth intensity that they’re nearly impossible not to relate to. It’s a collection of songs for those who are sick of incurable optimists, performed with such a steamrolling bravado that they become anthems.