Special Interests

Spiraling EP

scum stats - i can’t find ‘em anywhere

Props to Swank for turning me on to this one and to Goner for having a table set up at the Nashville record show last week where I was able to buy this sucker.

It doesn’t get much better than the opening track “Young, Gifted, Black, In Leather” all attitude and energy and vivacious establishment of being.

Second track “Disco” is more of the same. Pugnacious vibes for days. I want to see this band live and I hope it scares me as much as I anticipate.

Produced by Quintron, straight from New Orleans, this hits on a lot of the points that I dig about Downtown Boys. “Spiraling” has bass tone for days…so round and fully-formed. Take note: this is a textbook example of how four strings should sound. It seems so “duh” obvious but folks get it wrong constantly.

“If you don’t want shit, then don’t start it” is the most quotable lyric I’ve heard in some time and I still can’t tell if the song it comes from, “Fluid (Bound 2)” is a Kanye West reference or not. Either way, I’m down.

Drum machine on “Art Walk”, Detroit techno style intro on “Disco II” and the synth driven force of “Nerve” are all harbingers of the breadth and range a group can cover while still being legitimately punk. Ain’t no rule book here.

The closer “The State, the Industry, the Community & Her Lover” is the perfect culmination of all the preceding tracks. It builds wildly before climaxing as the pissed off offspring of Sonic Youth’s “PCH.”

Every record collection would be better served with this disc in it. I promise.

(FYI, the front cover says Special Interests while everywhere else on the record it is Special Interest. I love it)