Replica City – Gift of Knives | EP Review

Power Goth Recordings

Replica City are kicking off their third year as a band with the Gift of Knives, a short play that reinforces the Colorado group’s grip on melodic riffage and adds some swagger to the set. While the vibes certainly nod towards contemporary pillars like Hot Snakes and Protomartyr, I found this batch of tracks recalling the unexpectedly vibrant twists that Dave Grohl and Hot Water Music managed to sneak into the alt-rock bins of Best Buy in the mid-90s. The dedication to arrangement shows this band thriving in an aggressive yet smooth landscape, with each song surfing along flashy drums and Big Drop-D Energy progressions. 

Gift of Knives particularly succeeds in the tone zone department. Matt Dunne shows up with an absolute beast of a bass sound, blending Rancid-esque hairiness with a sparkling, rich low-end. Corey Fruin’s vocals have an engaging, down-to-earth quality that keeps the songs feeling authentic and human while his guitar work rewards with acid-dripped accents to each song’s framework. Nathan Rodriguez’s drumming hits my personal sweet spot of nimble and sloppy, showing a player who can pay the bills but isn’t letting precision get in the way of an earnest performance. All these ingredients are cooked into one tasty enchilada by Lauren Beecher, who has produced, engineered, and mixed every Replica City release to date. I don’t have the specs on Lauren’s studio, but these recordings embrace a “mid-fi” scrappiness and deliver a robust and clear mix that I wouldn’t enjoy as much if it had a higher-end studio polish. 

The beauty and risk of an EP is brevity. If I can’t sit through half a set, then obviously, I’m not gonna be sold on a longer play. Replica City tackles four songs over 15 minutes and succeed in keeping my attention. “Charming and Approachable” kicks things off with wild drums and feedback that blast into a tight-knit lamentation. I can already imagine Fruin’s elastic refrain, “There’s gotta be something else,” being a highlight in a live setting. The title track, “Gift of Knives,” pushes Dunne’s bass front and center in a mid-tempo number that floats between semi-ballad and tense chords before lighting up the sky for the outro. “Rear-Fanged” closes out the trio of original songs with the most aggressive of the batch and feels like the connective tissue between the band’s previously released singles and this group of songs. Fruin brings more self-reflection, admitting the “truth is I can’t get enough / now I got a taste of the good stuff” and asking, “What do I gain from this? Nothing.” Buddy, I totally hear you! 

The EP ends with a cover of Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off,” and thankfully, the band avoids the cliched movie trailer “sad song of death” trope for this one. Instead, the song is steadily delivered with the same explosive and fuzzy emotion found in the first three songs. In my headcanon, Replica City is a group forever cursed to cover songs now and again due to their name ;) I’m sure the band has got plenty of other originals to share before hitting the wedding circuit, so I’ll just imagine those true-to-self performances on my own time. 

Overall, I’m impressed with Replica City’s ability to go grunge without breaking out the flannels. Lately, I’ve leaned less towards mid-tempo saturated rock songs, but the group’s nervy energy feels like a resource that’s in short supply these days. A true blue rock record that will have me checking out future releases. 

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Thomas Swinn-McNeely recently bought a wok and is scared of how hot it gets.

Replica City – Last Rites | Single Premiere

Snappy Little Numbers / Power Goth Recordings

When I first moved from Detroit to Denver, one of the things I lamented most was “restarting” in a new music scene. I had spent the better part of two years going to gigs of all sizes and getting to know the talented, kind, funny, smart people from all over the Midwest who filled the bars, theaters, and basements every night to create one of the most healthy music communities I’ve ever been a part of. Then I moved halfway across the country to a place where I didn’t know a soul and barely knew any bands. 

I researched as best I could through a combination of show flyers, local DIY venues, and some light Instagram scrolling, but at first, I was saddened to see a certain lack of Midwesty-ness. In my mind, it felt like I had moved away from the emo capital of the world to a city mostly known for 3OH!3 and The Lumineers. While COVID certainly put a damper on the exploration of my local music scene, what I’ve come to find is that Denver may be less of an emo city, but it’s much more of a musically diverse city.

In the time since 2019, I’ve grown up a lot. I’ve mellowed out and don’t need every band to be jittery Midwest emo. I’ve found a lot of joy in discovering bands that make music beyond “the tappy shit” yet still maintain the DIY ethos that attracted me to that style of music in the first place. 

One of my favorite Denver discoveries has been a band called Broken Record, a shoegazey four-piece making sturdy-as-fuck indie rock inspired equal parts by Green Day and The Cure. An important offshoot of Broken Record is Replica City, a post-punk/post-hardcore group featuring half of Broken Record’s lineup. On guitar and vocals, you have the band’s mastermind Corey Fruin. Bass is helmed by Broken Record guitarist Matt Dunne, and drums come courtesy of Cherished’s Nate Rodriguez. Together, they make snarling and muscular alternative rock that they describe as haunting and frantic. 

Even though I feel like it may be diminutive or have negative connotations, I want to clarify that I mean “offshoot” here in the most complimentary way possible. It’s an outgrowth from something that I already know and love. To use another hyper-local example, Nick Webber’s recent All The Nothing I Know is an offshoot of A Place For Owls: it’s a record from someone in a band I already love doing something in the same realm but entirely standalone. These are also all Denver artists, and I (truthfully) just wanted to create this analogy to list out some of the most exciting bands I’ve discovered since living here. 

But back to Replica City. The band’s newest song, “Last Rites,” comes on the heels of two other singles meant to introduce listeners to the band’s distinct world. Throughout these songs, chunky basslines, shit-kicking drums, and fast-passed guitar slashes coalesce into a winding brand of rock that is beautifully realized on-record and explodes to life when performed live. 

“Last Rites” specifically opens with an arid bit of guitarwork that feels remarkably like a hike through one of Denver’s lush, high-desert landscapes. The drums and bass mount throughout the track, expertly withholding catharsis until the song’s final moments. Meanwhile, Fruin airs out morbid and misery-stricken observations on death. The line that lingers with me the most is, “You know you’re fucked when the ambulance is coming with no sirens on,” which is laid out bare over a swaying beat courtesy of Rodriguez.

While the band’s first single, “Answer to the Night,” is meant to be a catchy introduction, the second single, “Crowd Work,” is a frustrated and (half) tongue-in-cheek vent session about residing in the house of unrecognized talent. “Last Rites” takes things to their logical conclusion, ruminating on death and rounding out this triumvirate of human frustration. The band’s inspiration playlist for their latest single includes the likes of Buzzcocks and Fugazi alongside Greet Death, Protomartyr, and Unwound, and the math checks out. All of these influences combine with the decade-plus musical talents of each member, resulting in a stark, satisfying single that makes a case for Replica City as one of the many Denver bands to watch. 

“Last Rites” will be available on all streaming platforms tomorrow. You can pre-order a flexi 7” of the single here via Snappy Little Numbers and Power Goth Recordings.