Desperate Living

  

 Desperate Living is hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, featuring members of several heavy and noisy acts from the area (mainly from the modern post-hardcore side like The Minor Times, Ladder Devils but also from the poppy indie side like CRUISR and Person L) who decided to get together during the fall of 2017 under a simple edict: “let’s write punk songs.”

 So yes these guys don't come from a scene I follow really closely but as you may know now I like to explore and get surprised. And the quartet from Philadelphia caught my attention.

 

 New Concrete was released on Brutal Panda records (which features many quality Noise Rock / Post-hardcore bands) early 2019 (digital and CD only).

So Punk is the goal right ? But what is PUNK?

Well to these guys Punk is obviously deeply rooted in the sound of the 90s, from grunge to DC post-hardcore through noise rock and New Noise Hardcore, Desperate Living is delivering a concentrate of what punk could encompass at the time.

 

 

 

There is some Nirvana in Leave It, some Turbonegro in the short Ape, some heavy emoish noise rock in Slow One etc...

All over these 6 songs the band is singing despair (Ape), frustration, sadness (Sad Old Man) and anger (Don't You Dare), always powerful and heavy but never brutal or dirty, building its own identity of what punk is and can be.

I guess this is what Refused had in mind for the future when they wrote The Shape of Punk To Come.

 

One year and half later Desperate Living releases a second EP on Brutal Panda records featuring 5 new songs.

From the first seconds of the first song of City Sadness you understand that the band has decided to push the first EP formula to its limits. The guitars are heavier, the vocals are screaming straight to your eardrums, energy is exploding everywhere, the overall sound is slapping your face with a shovel... a name immediately comes to mind: Refused.

 

 

 

 Yes there is a lot of the new noise of the Swedish quintet in this EP, especially in tracks like Fault and Debbie Downer, but not only and the super energetic noise rock influences of the first release are never very far. 

Outside Looking In makes me think of bands like Helmet for some reasons, you know the kind of stoner noise almost ballad song I am thinking of.

 

In the end I think I am more into New Concrete than into City Sadness. 

This first release is just more punk (in the way I see punk I guess) and sounds closer to what I am fond of than the bit-too-big-and-modern sound of the second EP...

But don't get me wrong I really like Refused  but what can I say ? Not everybody is Refused...

  

You can listen to Desperate Living in Rien à Faire #15.

N,J'Oi!

 

 

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