Drug Church : Prude
Drug Church are a wildly fun band who often shine a spotlight on things that aren’t very fun at all. The group’s Kool-Aid-Man-through-a-brick-wall guitar riffs and triumphant melodies catalyze post-hardcore energy into arena-sized rock anthems, and scant few moments throughout their fifth album Prude aren’t loaded to a precarious degree with hooks. By any measure, this is the kind of album that’s engineered for thrills above all—for playing loud in your car or your headphones, for shouting along to when your shift’s over and your weekend begins.
So when the band dials back the wall of distortion for the melancholy jangle-pop shimmer of “Hey Listen,” the bleak sentiment in vocalist Patrick Kindlon’s lyrics arrives like a splash of ice water. Examining a bulletin board of missing teens at a Walmart in Antelope Valley, Kindlon zooms in on one kid in particular, “thin mustache and greasy hair/Looks just like half my friends.” And he reaches a devastating conclusion: “They forgot about this kid/before he disappeared.” There’s no moral to the story, no upside, no lesson to be learned other than that, “some folks are so lucky/and some folks are him.“
“Hey Listen” is as dark as Prude gets, but even as the band is tearing through some of their most infectious riffs, Kindlon shines a light on truths that exist somewhere between uncomfortable and fucked up. Over the surging power chords in opener “Mad Care,” Kindlon examines self-destructive tendencies even when circumstances offer a lifeline: “Nice things come your way/But you want something worse.” The thunderous power pop of “Demolition Man” finds him envying dogs because they seem to have more purpose and direction than any of us blessed and cursed with emotion, free will and expectations. And on “Business Ethics,” amid a haze of feedback and pounding bass, he spins a fabulist yarn about his cousin, seemingly intent to alienate everyone he knows through a selfish and cynical ploy to kidnap himself. The punchline? “Now he works in finance.”
The actual punchline, though, is that Prude is at least in part an album driven by hope and a desire for self-improvement. The people Kindlon describes are fuckups, but they’re people who often recognize the absurdity of their bad decisions as opposed to being outright villains, like the perpetrator of an armed robbery gone awry on “Slide 2 Me,” whose precarious getaway is—here’s that word again—actually kind of fun. But the best song on Prude is also the one that feels the most mature in its outlook; “Myopic,” exploding with flashes of guitar harmonics, finds Kindlon working hard to let go of anger: “Love my girl and friendships/I forgive all of life’s hassles/From flat tires to thieving bosses/Overdrafts to cheating exes.” It’s not exactly primal scream therapy, but shouting along to Drug Church’s affirmations will probably make you feel a lot better.
Label: Pure Noise
Year: 2024
Similar Albums:
Drug Church : Prude
Note: When you buy something through our affiliate links, Treble receives a commission. All albums we cover are chosen by our editors and contributors.
