Words by Jim Testa
Jim Testa founded the highly influential zine, Jersey Beat in 1982 which he continues to edit to this day. Through writing for his own publication and a number of other outlets, including as a staff writer for Hudson County’s Jersey Journal, he has championed local, regional and national up-and-coming bands. Punk has always shunned credentials, but rest assured that Jim won’t lead you astray.
GRAND SLAM
JOYCE MANOR – I Used to Go to This Bar (Epitaph)
If brevity is a virtue, the three fulltime members of Joyce Manor border on sainthood. Their seventh album (and first in four years), I Used to Go to This Bar clocks in at a scant 20 minutes. Nine songs that come and go and leave you smiling and singing along, even if the lyrics trend toward grief, dread, and loss. Guitarist/singer Barry Johnson and guitarist Chase Knobbe eschew the buzzsaw distortion and hoarse shouted vocals of their touring mates and peers, even as their polished pop-punk sometimes recalls the hitmakers of the early 00s, just with more wisdom and less commercial avarice. “Easy come and easy go / Dishwasher just overflowed,” Johnson laments on “All My Friends Are So Depressed.” “Key lime pie and Frampton Live / Wish that I would fucking die.” Whistling through the existential graveyard of the Trump era may not be a political statement per se but it’s a damn fine survival guide.
HOME RUNS
BROOK PRIDEMORE – Only I Can Prevent Forest Fires (Asbestos Records)
No one ever told Brook Pridemore that anti-folk was dead. He just keeps writing songs and playing every dive bar and scruffy club that will have him, both in his native Brooklyn and on tour. Only I Can Prevent Forest Fires splatters 15 tracks across the indie rock landscape like a Jackson Pollock; genres and arrangements blending together (folky, noisy, punky, indie), unified only by the canvas of Pridemore’s deadpan vocals. Antifolk was never so much a genre as an attitude anyway, but these songs fit the profile, with quirky, ironic, or impressionist lyrics, minimalist melodies, and eclectic production, equal parts punk and folk. Take “Entrails,” which literally dissects a failed relationship (“I was the tumor in your cheesecake” – ugh!). Other highlights include the enigmatic “Barry Lyndon in Reverse,” the celebrity-studded nightmare of “Today Jeff Goldblum,” the violent fantasy of “Merry Christmas (One More For Dave)” (only Brook would turn a Christmas song into something out of Clive Barker), and the off kilter romance of “Red Bank” (“somewhere not quite down the shore” is the best description of Red Bank, NJ ever). “My Friends in Crime” dabbles with folk (imagine Pete Seeger’s sarcastic doppelganger) and the autobiographical finale, “Star City Punkers!”, even verges on sincerity – usually anti-folk’s kryptonite.
DRY CLEANING – Secret Love (4AD)
Florence Shaw doesn’t sing so much as she talks at you — cool, detached, and oddly riveting. The London quartet’s new album, Secret Love, doesn’t reinvent Dry Cleaning’s formula, but it sharpens it. Shaw’s clipped, deadpan monologues still tumble between poetry, nonsense, and overheard conversation, while Tom Dowse’s guitar with jagged riffs or ethereal sprawl, all with taut, post-punk precision. What holds it all together is its locked-in, hypnotic effect. Dowse’s nervous riffs dance atop a rhythm section that never wastes a note. Secret Love doesn’t shout for attention; it whispers in your ear, daring you to listen closer. Four albums in, Dry Cleaning still makes confusion sound strangely beautiful.
THE CRIBS – Selling A Vibe (Sonic Blew Records)
There’s always been something stubbornly honest about The Cribs. For two decades, the Jarman brothers kept plugging away with the same three-chord sincerity and working man’s grimace – never quite fashionable, never quite forgotten. Selling A Vibe, their ninth record, doubles down on that stance with equal parts bite and bruised heart. That other brothers band from the Britpop 90s is an Oldies Act now on the nostalgia circuit; The Cribs have never stopped being relevant and interesting.
The album’s title feels tongue-in-cheek, a dig at the culture they’ve always refused to conform to. If the rest of the world’s trying to sell an image, The Cribs are still selling melodies: squealing guitars, cracked voices, and choruses you shout instead of scream. There’s a touch more poppy polish this time – credit producer Patrick Wimberley, who recently worked with L’il Yachty – but it never smothers their scrappy charm.
Consistency and durability should not be taken lightly, nor can we dismiss the band’s sense of humor. “Self respect will never cash the cheques,” they sing in “Self Respect,” self-mockingly acknowledging the choices they’ve made. For fans of indie rock, power pop, garage, and Britpop, The Cribs remain a reliable source of quality tuneage that frequently delights and never disappoints.
CHILD EATER – “The Man With 2 Gorilla Fingers” EP (self-released)
Jersey City’s Child Eater make a glorious racket somewhere between the Stooges, Sonic Youth, and a Tonnelle Ave. freight train. The bedroom fuzz of 2024’s Foist Things Foist gives way to a full-band brawl—louder, meaner, and way more alive. Frontman Ed Weisgerber and lead guitarist Andrew Merclean slash guitars like they’re cutting chain link, while Mike Dwyer and Joe Giambre’s rhythm section shakes the floor. “I Hope I Think I Know” and “Shov’r” hit hard; the instrumental title track drifts into garage psychedelia; “Dumb Girl” spits fury at casual misogyny; and “Blur” ends it in a swampy groove from hell. Two EPs in, this crew sound ready to level Jersey City. Somebody book them a basement and stand clear.
AWFUL DIN – Antibody (We’re Trying Records)
This Brooklyn quartet’s powerful new album teems with personal, emotional songs about our bodies and how they betray us. Americans complain about health care all the time, but don’t really spend much time on health. Aaron Groom, lead singer and guitarist, turns that discussion into spasms of frustration, self-loathing, pain, and anger, inspired by both his own health issues and that of a bandmate (“Foot Punk”). The track “Vietnam,” as you might expect, delivers a powerful anti-war message (“Kiddo, sit down, I know this might be a lot / gonna need you to sacrifice your body for a cause,”) while the seemingly conversational and nostalgic “15 Minutes of Shame” ends with a devastating denouncement (“And I thought that I had closure / but I guess it’s just regret”). While the lyrics convey the heavy emotional toll of our bodies betraying us, the music more often than not strikes a bouncy, upbeat tone. Emo schmemo, a listen won’t leave you feeling awful; just the opposite. Maybe the message is that as bad as things get, music’s always a balm we can turn to.