With the 90’s revival of alternative-rock in full swing and showing no sign of slowing down any time soon, you would be forgiven if you roll your eyes when another release comes up that is billed as such. Its easy to jump to conclusions and think that its just going to be another band wearing plaid shirts and doing their best Kurt Cobain impression, even though they probably aren’t old enough to remember the grunge movement at its peak. For every great band that is doing this style right now, there are probably 5 other bands that are just a poor imitation of what’s come before. And then there’s Drug Church. The brainchild of the intensely complex Self Defense Family main man Patrick Kindlon, Drug Church fuse alternative rock and punk together to create something magical that is a world away from the “Revolution Summer” sound of Kindlon’s day job.
From the outset ‘Swell’ doesn’t so much as pick up from where their fantastic debut full-length ‘Paul Walker’ left off, it essentially leaves it lying in the dust in its wake, and the emphatic production of J. Robbins (Jawbox) has given this EP a gigantic sound, pushing Drug Church to a new level. The walking bass line of lead track ‘But Does It Work?’ pays homage to ‘Debaser’ by the Pixies and in fact the quiet/loud aesthetic that Drug Church apply to their art owes a great deal to Frank Black and Kim Deal’s revolutionary sound.
They are far more than just another rip off band however, as ‘Mall Swat’ is a sublime three minutes of punk cacophony, with Kindlon’s sarcastic bile cutting through the mix. The stand out track ‘Ghost Dad’ has somewhat of a pop sensibility despite the larynx-shredding vocal over the top, as it flirts with ‘Spanaway’-era Seaweed pitch bending guitar work, which continues through the self examining rhetoric of the EP’s closer ‘Zero Zero’.
While Drug Church’s sound may not be the most innovative you will hear in your life time, it is the sound of a band that have taken the best parts of the past and given it a current lease of life, rather than take a nostalgic trip down memory lane. ‘Swell’ is bold, brash, and anything but unassuming, and it might just make Drug Church your new favourite band whether you want them to be or not.
GLEN BUSHELL