Drug Church
Cheer


4.0
excellent

Review

by owl beanie EMERITUS
November 14th, 2018 | 89 replies


Release Date: 2018 | Tracklist

Review Summary: a sermon for the vermin

When I listen to this album I picture a white-collared shirt shrivelling and charring in a backyard bonfire and I’m pretty sure that’s along the lines of what Drug Church intended. For my money, there’s little else that captures our collective disillusionment with the inexorable march of a production line than this kind of drop-tuned, four-chord punk music, but to fold CHEER up -- to put CHEER in this neat little box -- would be selling it short.

Normally I wouldn’t care about “…like, fuck the system maaaaann” albums, but something about this one makes it feel like Drug Church actually give a shit, and that they aren’t just conducting a public display of outrage for the sake of falling in step with what is understood of the punk genre. There's something more going on here. Ironically, it’s in how the record differs from its ilk that it makes its case for, you know, being impassioned and rousing and genuine. How many other bands like this do you know of that are willing to beg? To grovel? In Foam Pit, the lynchpin is passed through in the form of Patrick Kindlon yelping ”Don’t pass me over please there’s rent I gotta pay, Oh Jesus”, and something about that -- pitted against instrumentals that sound like someone punching a hole through drywall -- engenders the candour we look for in music tenfold compared to the more defensive, more antagonistic, alternative. My heart also skips for things as simple as the abrupt dropout of drums in the first verse of Weed Pin, the sheer and utter romance/celebration of a hook like ”PAY SHIT RATES, GET SHIT LABOUR” – striking that elusive balance between resonant simplicity and delivery we, as learned and experienced listeners(??), don’t instinctively feel like scoffing at. And I never wanted Tillary’s outro progression to end, even though it’s longer than some punk songs and meanders on until it forgets people are still in attendance.

I’ll tell you what is punk though: doing the thing even though you’ve “never been particularly good at the thing”, as Kindlon puts it, and although I disagree that he’s not good at the drunken, siren wailing he performs both here and in Self Defense Family, that tenacity galvanizes this record and manifests in ways that continue to surprise and affect 5-10 listens in. Those tom-heavy drums pummel and the riffs stack high like so many pillars of graffiti-tagged concrete and the solution to our malaise is setting fire to everything. And maybe this album is the fire; the guitar melodies on songs like Strong References and Avoidarama certainly blaze a scorching trail through the middle of the rhythm section. But on a record where those blistering tones are juxtaposed against lines like ”Find an oven, stick my head in”, I’m assuming that tenacity isn’t a by-product of optimism so much as it is a spiteful response to expectation and convention. That, my guys, is more punk than vandalizing GG Allin’s gravestone.

And the gross hipster in me, normally so loud and obnoxious, is quelled here: this is not my album, it deserves to be passed between us like a pack of cigarettes. There are different reasons for unification: a mutual love of a thing, a mutual hate of a thing, a shared responsibility. CHEER presents another: an intrinsic link between us tied by the common realization that we aren't worth shit, but that doesn't mean we should give up on making something that is.



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user ratings (207)
4
excellent


Comments:Add a Comment 
verdant
Emeritus
November 14th 2018


2505 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

smash that mf :b: react

clavier
Emeritus
November 14th 2018


1206 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

hell yes jack

FrwrdMtphr
November 14th 2018


9 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Album flappin slaps beyond words, but your review was prob the closest to those words.

Slex
November 14th 2018


17255 Comments


Yr an absurdly good writer friend, cheers
So pumped to give this a listen, didn't know it's SDF-adjacent

BMDrummer
November 14th 2018


15164 Comments


o fuck yes

schoonda
November 15th 2018


1842 Comments


I love your words. I will listen thank u

verdant
Emeritus
November 15th 2018


2505 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

thank you champions of my heart

NewBallistics
November 15th 2018


930 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Never gave this band a real chance but this album is super tasty.

schoonda
November 15th 2018


1842 Comments


not doing much for me at tbh :/ vox aren't my jam at all

schoonda
November 15th 2018


1842 Comments


foam pit is p fun though

schoonda
November 15th 2018


1842 Comments


ok Tillary is a banger too damn. might give this a few spins before writing it fully off

Dewinged
Staff Reviewer
November 15th 2018


32179 Comments


The punk review I always wanted to write and never could. Good stuff Jack.

verdant
Emeritus
November 15th 2018


2505 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

fun fact i don't actually know what punk means thanks manu

schoonda
November 15th 2018


1842 Comments


that's so punk

grandfather
November 15th 2018


220 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

God I'm so glad this got a featured review. Sick review, sick album.

NewBallistics
November 15th 2018


930 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Any one notice that riff on Weed Pin? Like wtf; it's Sum 41's Motivation haha

Asdfp277
November 15th 2018


24791 Comments


Drag Church - CHER

verdant
Emeritus
November 15th 2018


2505 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Church Church - CHOIR

ramon.
November 15th 2018


4204 Comments


now this is epic.

Pajolero
November 15th 2018


1459 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

So fucking excited to see these dudes next year



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