I Know What I Heard

Never Young “Ur A Front”

I’ve been getting sent PR emails about bands for a third of my life now, and I’m very used to publicists saying their artists sound something like some pre-existing well-regarded band. In the case of Never Young, I saw that they were compared to Fugazi, and I reflexively scoffed: Haha, no one is gonna sound like Fugazi! But here’s the crazy thing: Never Young actually DOES sound a little like Fugazi. You can hear it in the way the riffs crash violently into the beat, and the drums hit with a physical force that you don’t find in all that much rock music from the past decade or so. (Even the stuff that’s meant to be heavy.) You can hear it in the way this dude sings, which clearly aspires to Guy Picciotto’s nakedly emotional shouts and slurs.

This is definitely music that belongs to the same lineage, but Never Young are true to the spirit of Fugazi and Dischord by being themselves too. There’s a very particular ugly metallic clang to their guitar tone, and they favor a mix that’s more about blasting your ears out than just offering a dry document of a band in a room. They also like shifting into a trebly, angelic tone, and while they’re hardly the first band to have a slashing, screaming sound smash right into something more lovely and ethereal, they’re certainly the best I’ve heard do it in many years.

Buy it from Amazon or Bandcamp.