The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
In the first season of Mad Men, Don Draper knocks ad pitches out of the park like a Leon Uris-reading Mickey Mantle.1 He drinks, naps, philanders, and leverages every bit of his Ayn Rand protagonist façade to convince clients to buy into his vision.
That’s what makes a bit of brinksmanship in Episode 8, “The Hobo Code,” so memorable. Draper, the creative director for the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, is faced with clients skeptical of advertising in general and Sterling Cooper’s abilities in particular. Rather than changing the conversation or giving a nostalgia-laden stump speech, Draper calls the clients to the mat with a contemptuous but effective indifference.
“I’m not here to tell you about Jesus,” the haughty and exec practically scoffs. “You already know about Jesus. He either lives in your heart or he doesn’t.”
Basically: You know why you’re here, you know what this is and you know who I am. Explaining more is a waste of time. Get on board or get out.
The borderline blasphemous tough love ultimately works. It also proves to be an instructive way to discuss Dry Socket, a politically trenchant hardcore band from Portland that sites acts like GLOSS, Ceremony and Negative Approach as influences.2
Either that premise of rage-until-you-heave rock wrestled into existence by a band that shares a name with an unpleasant dental condition has an inherent appeal to you, or it doesn’t. Self Defense Techniques, the latest long-player from the fierce foursome,3 isn’t going to subvert expectations or change your mind. If blistering hardcore is something you’re in the market for, Dry Socket’s intensity and sense of musicality make Self Defense Techniques a bracing, exhilarating, truly exceptional example of the form.4
Dry Socket’s feral intensity and extra stylistic verve is evident from the first lines of the album’s opening track, “The Chop.” Mononymous lead vocalist Dani delivers the words “Tired of being scared / Exhausted by their hate/ No longer living to appease and placate” in a hair-raising a cappella scream. A simple drumbeat follows these words, which are then repeated with equal intensity and a clarified sense of rhythm granted by the percussion. After a couple more repetitions, the phrase establishes itself as one of the year’s most unlikely and irascible earworms. Then the bruising guitars come in. They always come in.
Self Defense Techniques is an eight-song album that can be heard in less time than it takes to watch a ’90s sitcom rerun. Chugging, churning, dive-bombing, howling or screeching guitar is essentially always around the corner. It’s the sort of in-ear conflagration that makes listening to music feel like a contact sport and can transform the interior of a sensible Toyota into a mosh pit.
It’s a sound that a lot of bands can approximate, but that few put to as good, or varied, use as Dry Socket, who manage to find impressive dimension and variety within extremely agitated hardcore. Tempos and melody are subject to change within any given song, and tracks tend to be structurally complete in a way that’s atypical of two-minute ragers.
“Pressure Points,” for example, begins with a somewhat muted, panning intro before the music snaps into focus and goes ballistic, and it winds down with a call-and-response that makes a fairly grim assessment sound fun. The intensity of “Leglock” is slightly tamped down for a sort of motor-mouthed eulogy before its gale-force assault continues. “Safety On” starts with something like a spoken-word thesis statement for an album that often navigates the tension between compromise for survival and the need to exist authentically —”I want to be breakable without being broken/ Weep loudly, express rage/ I want to breathe without pain or control/ And still remain — before morphing into one of the hardest-hitting songs on the album, complete with a guttural guest vocalist.5
When an album lives or dies by how much feeling it can wrench from a listener in 120 seconds or less, attention to detail and clever moves on the margins elevate the best stuff over the rest of the field. With Self Defense Techniques, Dry Socket clearly asserts its position as a top-tier hardcore band.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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Year of the Month
A new Iceage album is now treated like a Capital-E Event. That wouldn't be the case without Plowing into the Field of Love.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
Oh yeah, I’m into that mix of influences. (Saw Ceremony at Gilman St back in 2011, probably a top 10 show.)
What did we watch?
Picnic At Hanging Rock – “You probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?”
“The clouds me thought would open, and show riches/Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked/I cried to dream again.”
One of those incredibly eerie works of art that is very hard to shake off. Back in my Indian Studies university class, the professor told us that the English forced the workers there to work under timetables, to be more regimented and schedule-oriented. What happens here to these girls and governess, whatever it is, undoes the colonial project of insistent organization, rigorous timing, the taming of the land, and the protection of women as sacred objects, as if the ladies enter the Aboriginal dreamtime, or the massive rocks and sharp crevices have eaten them whole.
One girl indicates beforehand that she knows what will happen. She knows she will disappear. How is that possible? Who the hell can say? We are not in the rational. We are in a dream. Picnic at Hanging Rock’s clocks, juxtaposition of soft white dresses against hard landscapes, and Botticelli angels add up to a portrait of an escalating loss of control, with the camera itself as wielder and kidnapper, trying to capture the women until it cannot. Once they disappear from sight, they are gone. Just gone.
The Chair Company, first episode – How much do I relate to Ron needing an answer to a petty problem/humiliation, one that he cannot find in capital’s inhuman machinations? TOO MUCH. Ron isn’t quite as dysfunctional as the usual Tim Robinson type either; his speech is actually pretty good which only makes the chair incident sting all the more (even absurdly so). I really dig the Uncanny touches so far like Ron finding a picture of his coworker (Jim Downey!) glowering at him and the huge red bouncy ball in Tecca’s semi-deserted headquarters. Can’t wait to watch more.
Beautiful Picnic at Hanging Rock write-up. One of those films that I always feel like is like living inside a poem.
Thanks! I already want to see it again, I knew it’d have an impact but I felt totally mesmerized after.
The Kids In The Hall, Season Five, Episode Twelve
“Hey pyjamas, the kid’s a little nervous.”
This is an extreme example of the show finding comedy in the most banal moments of life. This is what people used to do before smartphones.
“You know the rules: no swearin’ and no f*g tossin’!”
“I told you, precious, how I gave away that gift at a kegger at Grade 8!”
“The seas have all dried up, nobody can make a living fishing anymore!”
“Swallow the ring.”
“Geromino!”
“Statistically, second marriages work a lot better than first marriages.”
“I’ll get you the ring later.”
“You may, and it’s your choice, kiss the bride.”
“You didn’t even find out what time it would be on!”
“I was in high school, and I found out that my teacher’s name was Melvin.”
“I just saw someone lick a stamp.”
“I’m a repairman in an imperfect world.”
“Can I touch your penis?”
“No. … I mean yes! Darn.”
“So how’s the afterlife?”
“Well, it’s a lot like Vancouver.”
“Now they all think that I’m a liar, and they’re teasing me and saying I died of cancer.”
“I didn’t want everybody to think every gay man is called David.”
“I don’t shake. I dissolve.”
“What does God look like?”
“Oprah!”
“I knew it!”
The In-Laws (1979) – NYC dentist Alan Arkin is sucked into a wacky CIA scheme by his future son in law’s dad Peter Falk. The two actors form a deep rapport that carries this over gags that haven’t aged well – especially stereotypes of a banana republic and a pair of Taiwanese pilots who don’t speak English (though James Hong somehow manages to keep his dignity) – and a plot that is almost as incoherent as Ishtar’s. I loved this as a teen, and maybe I get why, but adult me merely likes it. Richard Libertini is the silly dictator of the banana republic, Ed Begley Jr is Falk’s CIA colleague, both are okay.
Elementary, “Lesser Evils” – Holmes uncovered a series of mercy killings at a hospital, and of course finds the “angel of death.” And then discovers that one of the killings was not what it seems. Solid as usual, with more than a couple of good twists. Plus Joan meets an old friend and colleague and decides that even though she was really a good doctor, she never wants to do it again. Anika Noni Rose plays the old friend. David Harbour in a suit and tie plays an arrogant doctor.
Slow Horses, “Last Stop”
I watched all of Series 1 over the last week and a half but neglected to write it up here: it was good! The overall plot isn’t always firing on all cylinders (though the Hobden-Judd interactions on that point sizzle, all hitting a little too close to home; Hobden getting creamed at the end made me howl), but the character interactions are great, and Oldman’s a top-notch “surly boss with a secret heart of gold,” with genuinely funny cynicism and enough presence to sell his softer moments as real and affecting. So with that, we head into Series 2, with an all-too-short-lived Phil Davies (love that guy) kicking off the plot. Min and Louisa are actually cute together (she gave him a FitBit!). Lamb’s middle finger salute is so gleefully done and delivered with such fake sincerity that it had me and my wife on the floor.
It would be easy to underrate Jack Lowden’s performance as wannabe wunderkind River Cartwright, and that would be a mistake, because it’s actually a brilliant blend of propulsive and endearingly comedic, and the show lets him have his successes while also knowing there’s nothing funnier than taking the piss out of him when he goes for traditionally heroic moments. He can be a badass, but anytime he tries to make it a persona, it instantly gets deflated (Lamb knocking him right off his high horse about Min and Louisa’s secondment killed me), and Lowden sells both sides of that seemingly effortlessly.
What did we listen to?
Thanks Ruck, this Belair Lip Bombs album Again is really good, hooky, and worth repeat listens. Probably going to be up there in my 2026 listens.
Started listening to A Little Night Music once more and is there anything finer than the trio of contrapuntal harmonies that make up “Soon”? Obviously not. “Send In The Clowns” is a magnificent, heartbreaking piece of music too and it’s infuriating that Sondheim wrote it in two fucking days.
Podcasts: I really want someone else to listen to Valley Heat, an extremely funny fiction-comedy podcast that’s created it’s own little strange pocket universe of Burbank featuring Doug, an insurance adjustor (badly) investigating who may have been dealing drugs via his garbage can and slowly blowing up his life in the process because he’s so petty and can’t keep his mouth shut. There’s even jingles for fake businesses by a fake band, Cephalopods Are People Too.
Cards Speak, Episode One, “The Thing About The Old Days with Sam Greenwood”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO1zMdHiRp0&list=PLhrRxYH5ozxMd7GtHklgWrueQkSpoZSQd
Nath’s new podcast. He set out to make a more discursive, philosophical podcast interviewing interesting people, and I think it’s worked out – I enjoyed the talk about poker (even though when it gets technical, I feel like Charlie Kelly saying “What’s the vig on this action?”) and as Nath has done before, laying out the way the culture has changed as both big business and the structure of the internet has changed the culture and tactics, as both new tactics spread fairly quickly (one observation I’ve seen a lot is that the internet has made niche knowledge redundant) and people have managed to industrialise the industry and soak up all the money. I was particularly amused by Nath’s observation that a player in the 00’s could have read that one poker book from the 70’s and had a functional career.
A lot of it was really about the emotions of poker players that I think translate to universal situations; granted, I was never rich, but listening to them reminisce about being in their very early twenties resonated with my own experiences around that age and how I look back on it, and the transformation of the game matches up with a lot of discussions people have about capitalism and the way the working class (even the ‘working class’ of poker) have been screwed over. You can kind of couple it together in how most young people would be happy just getting by and doing the bare minimum and then going home and doing the shit they actually care about, as well as an impatience for the pretence that they care about their job.
Of course, I also enjoyed the discursions; AI, Press Your Luck, prestige TV and Bojack Horseman in particular. I think Nath’s locked onto a good idea here in that there’s a good central hook of professionals talking about their specific job in a universal way that allows for these discursions in a way that isn’t annoying.
“isn’t annoying” – print it, put it on the ads!
Also, even though I wanted episode titles, I hadn’t actually thought of one when I released it. Fortunately, my bank of halfwit pop culture references never runs empty.
Good Kid – Can We Hang Out Sometime
A John Congleton-produced indie rock album with meta lyrics that fliers with polyrhythms and was nearly the subject of this week’s column. Worth a listen, but not as compelling as Dry Socket’s LP.
She-Devils-She-Devils
I found a reasonably nice iHome (is that an oxymoron?) at a secondhand store, which has given life to a pair of old 160gb iPods. While reviewing their contents, I rediscovered this 2017 beach goth album, which I hadn’t thought of in years. I’m happy to report it’s good, AND I’ve successfully installed Rockbox on the iPods.
Year of the Month update!
Next month, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1949.
April. 9th: Cori Domschot: I Was a Male War Bride
Apr. 13th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Apr. 16th: Cori Domschot: On the Town
Apr. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Confessions of a Mask
Apr. 27th: Tristan J. Nankervis: 1984
And in May, we’ll be opening the doors for your writing on any movies, albums, books, etc. from 2014!
TBD: Cori Domschot: Earth to Echo
TBD: Cori Domschot: Jack Ryan