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7 songs of quintessential Portland punk from members of Dark/Light and Piss Test. Angular, energetic, and a little bit snotty, Era Bleak sounds like just about what you would expect if you were to meld the sounds of the members' aforementioned bands. This is an incredibly solid debut!
Our take: 7-song tape from this new band out of Portland. I usually associate Dirt Cult with the type of earnest pop-punk that Razorcake magazine covers (which, I realize, is an over-simplification at best), but Era Bleak isn’t like that at all… rather, they’re a post-punk-style band with a heavy emphasis on the punk. They remind me of the Nots from Memphis in that they play at garage-punk speeds, have a kind of apocalyptic, perhaps even slightly sci-fi vibe, layer their songs with sheets of noise, yet somehow manage to pull catchy songs out of the din. With 7 tracks on this tape it’s closer in length to a lot of full-lengths these days, so grab this along with the New Vogue cassette and consider your appetite for well-crafted, densely-layered post-punk sated.
Our take: 7-song tape from this new band out of Portland. I usually associate Dirt Cult with the type of earnest pop-punk that Razorcake magazine covers (which, I realize, is an over-simplification at best), but Era Bleak isn’t like that at all… rather, they’re a post-punk-style band with a heavy emphasis on the punk. They remind me of the Nots from Memphis in that they play at garage-punk speeds, have a kind of apocalyptic, perhaps even slightly sci-fi vibe, layer their songs with sheets of noise, yet somehow manage to pull catchy songs out of the din. With 7 tracks on this tape it’s closer in length to a lot of full-lengths these days, so grab this along with the New Vogue cassette and consider your appetite for well-crafted, densely-layered post-punk sated.