Pitchfork
69
It’s hard to say whether form or function came first in hardcore, but it’s one hell of an equal partnership—music that effectively conveys the feeling of being extremely intense about something, for about as long as one can feel comfortable being that extremely intense. And yet, its brevity also makes it an interesting filter for pop. With only two minutes to spare at most, the verses have to be cut out or ignored, the chorus just gets yelled a few times and then you move onto the next one. Isn’t that how most people choose to remember pop songs anyway? Angel Du$t isn’t the first band to come up with this idea, but whereas most bands of this sort come off like hardcore acts dabbling in pop, Rock the Fuck on Forever is the exact opposite.
Hell, this isn’t the first time they tried either, though 2014’s A.D. seems like an obvious dry run in retrospect. At the time, Angel Du$t were a relatively melodic hardcore band, but they didn’t sound ready to embrace it as their definitive aspect. Fortunately, they were emboldened by its positive underground reception. In an interview from last year, the incredibly well-named Justice Tripp said, “I think in 2015, you can do whatever you want and most hardcore kids will at least try it out.” His native Baltimore is having a bit of a moment right due to a couple of hardcore bands that go far outside of the genre’s strictures. In addition to Angel Du$t, Praise skews emo in a way similar to Title Fight, and the rapidly ascendant Turnstile could pass for an aggro 311 or unwoke Rage Against the Machine at times. Angel Du$t itself contains members of Turnstile and fist-swinging traditionalists Trapped Under Ice.
Angel Du$t still love themselves some hardcore bluster—“Rectify” sounds awful cheerful about the ass-kicking you've got coming your way, Tripp’s pretty sure everyone’s kinda full of shit (“Somebody Else”) and life is kinda pointless (“Headstone”). It’s kind of a posture, though: Tripp sings with a chest-puffing huff and enunciates so every lyric is completely understandable. It’s musclebound and also lovably cartoonish, like being menaced by Zangief from Street Fighter or something.
The power of Rock the Fuck on Forever actually lies in its love songs. The band describes themselves as a cross between the Lemonheads and Bad Brains, essentially meaning they play goofy pop songs about how much they like girls and/or how much they wish a girl would like them back at extremely fast tempos. Will Yip’s production tends to be divisive in punk circles, but there’s no denying his ability to make bands in this realm sound like they could’ve snuck into a 1995 alt-rock station if things broke right; the stuttering vocals from “Ready 2 Receive U” and “Upside Down” imagine if Cloud Nothings followed their pop-punk muse and worked with Rob Cavallo rather than Steve Albini. In other words, they’re about halfway between Pinkerton and Smash.
It’s Angel Du$t’s best trick, but it’s not their only one—there’s nods at surf-rock (“Bad Thing”), rap-metal non-sequitur (“Toxic Boombox”), and classic hardcore hxc call-and-response (“Hurt You Bad”). There’s even an instrumental! Rock the Fuck on Forever sees itself as a real-deal album, lending a degree of seriousness to Angel Du$t that would otherwise be absent. Whether it’s necessary is a different issue—even at 20 minutes or so, they've stretched as much as they need to and it’d almost certainly be stronger if it were three minutes shorter rather than three minutes longer.
As much as Rock the Fuck on Forever has the sound of a crossover, there’s never the sense that the band is playing the angles and hoping to score a ticket out of punk rock. You can’t say a band called Angel Du$t making a record called Rock the Fuck on Forever isn’t self aware, but to get a sense of their work ethic, they’ll be playing nine straight nights while traversing Tijuana to Seattle and back to Los Angeles for the purist Sound and Fury Festival. It’s loud, it’s fast and it kicks ass: despite the jokes and mash notes, this is hardcore.
Fri May 27 00:00:00 GMT 2016