Inside Porcupine’s Altar of Vapor: An interview with Chicago’s masters of Dark Hardcore

Photo by K.B. Imaging

“We didn’t sacrifice anything that makes us Porcupine. We’re still heavy. This is our most collaborative project to date as a band. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take the band and the music itself very seriously. People should be keeping their eyes peeled for anything that we do.” 

Porcupine vocalist and lyricist Dawson Kiser sounds extremely proud and confident when he says this to me, his excitement about his band’s newest material completely shining through the Google Meet call we arranged. I have been closely watching the evolution of the Chicagoland and Pittsburgh hardcore outfit since their first proper releases in 2018, though they had been germinating deep in the Midwest suburbs for a couple of years already at that point. Since then, I’ve heard the band put out record after record of intense, chaotic, blistering hardcore music, and seen them perform with the likes of Harvest, Ignite, and Portrayal Of Guilt. 2024 was a crucial year for the band, with their debut full-length album All Is Vapor being unleashed in June — sharing a release date with Charli xcx’s unavoidable brat, a fact they jokingly feel set them back. “Our album is a challenging listen; it’s long and ruthless for a modern hardcore album,” guitarist Joey Hernandez reflects. “And it came out the same day as brat, so we got beef with Charli now.”

Porcupine’s music has nothing in common with the 365 party girl herself, as you might imagine. Their ferocious and unrelenting approach to hardcore and metal is one of the most impressive that the underground has to offer, evident by songs like “Funeral Grief” from 2021’s The Sybil EP, or “Army Of Martyrs” from All Is Vapor. Now, just over a year later, the band is back with the six-track EP Under The Altar, released via Chicago label New Morality Zine, the band’s longtime home. The 25-minute collection serves as a direct companion to last year’s album, with its only physical release being a CD that compiles the two – a further extension of the themes and imagery that began with The Sybil. Dawson Kiser breaks it all down: “There is a strong connection between those three records. I was still exploring different ideas, starting with The Sybil, but there’s been this consistent philosophical idea of dualism – the idea of having a body and a spirit, being drawn to material life and immaterial life – and what that means in a world full of suffering and depravity. That’s been across the board through our releases, but I think it’s gotten more precise on Under The Altar.”

Hernandez adds, “Some of the ideas for these new songs have been around for a while. Dawson wanted to do a sequel to ‘Holy Cowards’ from All Is Vapor, which sort of inspired us to do this follow-up EP. I pulled a lot of things that have been sitting on the shelf and recreated them to sound like something that Porcupine would make in 2025. I was really influenced by mewithoutYou, who put out a lot of sequels to other things across their discography. The next one we worked on redoing was ‘Close The Doors,’ since the album version is just acoustic. We wanted to work out a full band version for our live set, and Dawson added new lyrics to it. I think the sequel totally works as a tone setter for the EP before ‘Dull Blade’ comes in.”

Under The Altar’s title track is the band’s longest to date, clocking in at just under nine minutes. The group is no stranger to epic, sprawling songs on their releases, like “The Kingdom Of Heaven” from The Sibyl and “I Am Bound” from All Is Vapor. But this track’s inception also predates the other songs on the EP by quite some time, as the band explains. “It was originally called ‘I Wish You Peace,’ and it came out on the benefit compilation Artists For Black Lives Matter Vol. 1 back in 2020,” Kiser recalls about his original acoustic performance of the track. Hernandez follows, “I always had the idea to make that a Porcupine song because I thought the melody and riff were so sick. When I translated it to the band, I wanted it to be super calm in the beginning, because what Dawson is saying lyrically on the song is just so haunting and desperate, but I knew the second half would be a lot more intense.”

Kiser admits, “It’s a very exhausting song for me. My vocal approach was totally different; I’ve never sung that way on a Porcupine song before. I start really subdued, and then it goes into this painful scream where I’m trying to hold the note of the song. I was listening to a lot of Battle Of Mice and their vocalist, Julie Christmas, while writing the song. Her vocals really inspire me because they’re so terrifying and emotional all at once.”

Photo by @w0rms5

Hernandez and Kiser are the band’s co-founders and only consistent members, although Under The Altar was mixed by returning bassist Jordan Hermes, an element of the record they’re both excited about. “We love him being back, he’s been instrumental in making these songs sound like more than just demos. It feels so natural, and we’re so locked in whenever we practice. He’s been a huge part of us becoming a better band,” Hernandez says.

Between the thematic consistency of their 2020s catalog and the return of early band members, the conversation with the band led me to suggest the idea of the “Porcupine Cinematic Universe,” and it turns out I wasn’t far off. “Jordan said the same thing,” Hernandez says. “We all like to do different stuff that may not be directly related to Porcupine, but it’s all kind of connected. Dawson’s solo record that came out recently is like that.”

Released in May under his middle name, Micaiah Kaiser, Treachery Utterly Murders Our Respect, or TUMOR, is a deeply personal record about betrayal, heartbreak, and suffering. “It was still a collaboration with Joey,” Kiser notes. “We’ve been working on it for a long time, like five years…”

“That’s because I was procrastinating,” Hernandez admits.

“… that’s also true, but I wasn’t going to throw you under the bus,” Kiser laughs. He continues, “There are some sonic similarities to the band because it’s these same two guys working on it, but nothing sounds like a Porcupine song. It’s not remotely hardcore. I don’t really know what to call it. Joey is better at identifying genres than I am.”

Hernandez qualifies, “It’s like Giles Corey-core. Definitely something for fans of that or other artists on The Flenser record label. Bedroom recordings with some spacey and ambient beats.”

“Nick Cave is probably my most listened-to artist of all time,” Kiser says when asked about other musical artists that inform his writing. “I’m always listening to his stuff and am really influenced by the way he approaches dark themes with a sort of folklore style.”

The full band’s approach to what they call “dark hardcore” feels informed more at times by leftfield and experimental artists like Cave or King Woman than traditional hardcore bands, but Hernandez and Kiser haven’t lost any love for their anchoring genre, despite the sense that they’re navigating their way through it. “The thing about hardcore,” Hernandez confesses, “it’s kind of a sore subject for us. We’re totally doing our own thing, and it’s not the cool thing to do. I think that’s made us stand out, but it’s also made us go, ‘Oh, people don’t really understand what this is.’ We’re always thinking about that type of thing. I love bands like Candy and Vein because they’re so off-kilter and doing something interesting, but you can tell they’re all really talented dudes. Or a band like Code Orange, where you can tell they have hardcore roots, but they went in more of a rock and roll direction that was still really heavy.”

Kiser adds, “I still view us as a hardcore band, I don’t ever see us as not having an obvious hardcore influence. There are songs on Under The Altar that are just hardcore songs to me, and how I personally understand the genre. I still love listening to hardcore bands and going to shows and watching people going crazy, even if some of the more popular bands don’t generally line up with what Porcupine is doing. Even some of my favorite bands like All Else Failed, Converge, and Starkweather, that maybe lean more metal or something else entirely, they’re still hardcore bands to me.”

Photo by Max Glazer

Porcupine’s live performances are not to be missed — the quintet consistently delivers blistering and visceral shows at any venue they play, channeling the energy of some of extreme music’s tightest acts like Full Of Hell and Harm’s Way. They’ve just wrapped up a short touring run with close friends The Jackal – a new Ohio band featuring members of Griphook and Coop. On the tour, Hernandez says, “I’m excited to connect back up with them, just to hang out and get inspired. Every tour we do, we get inspired by the bands we play with. Like the band Prouns, who are just a three-piece, but they really know how to rock out. And the band Clot, they’re super professional and older than us, I almost felt like they were showing us up every night. And with The Jackal, this is the most impressed I’ve been with one of Zach Butcher’s bands.”

Porcupine continues their Summer tour dates next week with fellow Chicago-based band We Weren’t Invited, capped off by a hometown record release show on August 16th. Hernandez feels equally pumped for this run, giving his next tourmates accolades for being “so crazy, and they do whatever the fuck they want, it’s wild. I’m also excited to talk to people about the new record. We’ve been keeping it under wraps for a while, but I can’t wait to hear what people think of it. I love that our close friends love our music, and I don’t think their opinion doesn’t matter, but I really love listening to new people who are discovering Porcupine, even if they only like one song. It just makes me happy to know I did something cool like that.”

2026 will mark ten years since Porcupine formed, and Hernandez and Kiser have no plans to stop anytime soon. Reflecting on the milestone, Hernandez says, “I think we’re at a point now where we’re at our best, and we can make the best music we can with the best people.” Kiser agrees, “We’ve all grown up together, and the music is indicative of that. This current lineup is the best one that we’ve had. We all get along great.” I asked them exactly what “growing up” means to them as a band, not just the experience of doing so, but what they’re taking away from that experience.

Hernandez answers, “Even though I love a lot of what we did in the past, obviously I would do it a lot differently now. The first real thing I’m proud of is the Zomia record. I still listen back to that and go, ‘that’s crazy that I made that when I was 20.’ That was the first time I realized I could make something really interesting, and we got a nod from the Axe To Grind podcast, which I never thought could happen even back then. And then they premiered ‘Euphrosyne’ ahead of All Is Vapor coming out, which was so cool of them to do.

We just want to keep challenging ourselves with things that I don’t even know if they’re hardcore or not anymore, but then I’ll go write a 90-second straightforward hardcore song after that. I love how Smashing Pumpkins can mix together soft and heavy songs on the same album, like Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, which was the first record that made me think, ‘I want to sonically emulate this.’ We’ve ventured through a lot of sonic experimentation, a lot of different types of hardcore. We’ve grown our networking skills since our first tour in 2018. We’re a lot more mature now. I’m really happy with this EP. I wouldn’t change a thing about it, and I didn’t compromise anything that makes us Porcupine, but every new record we do, I feel like we have to reintroduce ourselves. So I hope this is going to foreshadow whatever comes next, because it’s going to be even better.”

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Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

I like a band called Fugazi from Washington D.C.

Patience 

I was straight edge until a few months before my 21st birthday. I acted as if it were a political stance, similar to what Ian MacKaye laid out in the term-defining Minor Threat track. I told people that I didn’t need to get fucked up to have fun, but I knew in my heart that I was afraid of loss of control. What would I reveal if I got drunk? Would I tell the boys that when I was a kid and dreamed about being a parent that I saw myself as the pregnant one, even though I was assigned male at birth? Would I explain that I expected someday to become a woman? I knew before elementary school that boys shouldn’t think that way and worked hard to fit in. I wouldn’t let a moment of drunken stupidity betray my years of effort to maintain.

Most of all, I was worried about what a moment of not repressing would show me about myself. 

All my life was about repression, and that did not stop when I started taking up vices. I did not come to terms with my gender the first time I tasted gin. This is not a pro-alcohol piece; my abstinence is emblematic of how my mind acted in self-defense from socially enforced interpretations of what it means to be a man. I was afraid of not existing rigidly. I wanted so badly not to want. To conform. It infuriated me I that didn’t feel right around the boys, and that the girls didn’t want to be my friend. I sat in a room for years waiting to be called for my turn, mistakenly believing it would come soon and wasting my time. 

I wish I could say hearing “Waiting Room” for the first time changed my life instantaneously, but for a long time, it was the only Fugazi song I knew, and it was only just a fun song. I was big on Minor Threat, and anytime I got past “Waiting Room” on 13 Songs and into the Guy Picciotto-fronted “Bulldog Front,” I would bristle slightly because it wasn’t the hardcore I wanted. 

But “Waiting Room” isn’t just a fun song; it’s a manifesto. The first song on their first EP, 7 Songs, “Waiting Room” lays out Fugazi’s statement of purpose from the jump: they will not wait for someone to provide them a function, they will form one themselves. While every other band played more expensive shows, signed to massive labels, and took on brand deals, Fugazi defined their objective as anti-exploitation. Shows were $5 until they adjusted for inflation. Dischord Records keeps their records priced at $18. Almost all of their hometown shows were benefits for organizations like the Washington Free Clinic, the Washington Inner City Self-Help & After School Kids, or The Community for Creative Non-Violence. If not a benefit, they played protests against injustices like the Gulf War, budget cuts for essential services in D.C., or Reagan’s war on drugs.

“For marketing the use of the word generation / a false alliance of money persuading”
– “Target” from Red Medicine, Guy Picciotto

MacKaye has a metaphor for how he crafted songs for Minor Threat versus Fugazi that I hope you’ll allow me to butcher. Minor Threat songs presented an idea fully formed, like a shirt, whereas Fugazi songs were the fabric from which to make a shirt. “Waiting Room” is a scrap that poses the question of what you will do with your limited time. Are you a patient boy, or are you going to make a functional key to the waiting room? “Waiting Room” is a call to all of us to take our chances, one that took me years to heed. 

Through the Haze 

My way into Fugazi was In On the Kill Taker. I don’t remember why I decided to listen to it. I could have been prompted by a video essay I watched that referenced this as the most straight-up “punk” of the records. I could have been drawn in by the hazy yellow cover with the Washington Monument looming like a monster. I could have questioned the cryptic title: what is the kill taker, and who is in on it? Regardless of what it was that got me through the door, the moment the phone line guitar noise started, I was in. Then the drums and bass built up. Then it all dropped to just chicken scratch guitar driving ahead, and then there was Ian MacKaye, massive in my mind, screaming that “pride no longer has definition.”

I didn’t know what MacKaye was barking throughout “Facet Squared,” his voice far less clear than any Minor Threat song. I didn’t know what he was saying should never touch the ground. I didn’t know what he was saying was always dated. I didn’t know why we were drawing lines to stand behind. But I knew this was it. I knew this album would be what helped me get Fugazi, especially when the Picciotto-fronted “Public Witness Program” pulled me in closer, unlike “Bulldog Front.”

In On the Kill Taker became everything to me. The hazy cover photo belies the clearly focused vision of the band and its philosophy. Detractors of Fugazi have long accused the band of merely preaching, dictating to the audience, as if their songs were gospel to follow. But when you listen to the songs on Kill Taker, it is hard to maintain that belief. “Returning the Screw” questions a set of peers who poked fun at Mackaye on their album cover. “Rend It” is one of the most devastating love songs as Picciotto pleads to give himself wholly to his lover. “Great Cop” isn’t about policing; it’s about trust in interpersonal relationships. The title “23 Beats Off” is not an inversion of Magic Johnson’s number, as myth goes, but it is a wrenching piece about the dominant society in the U.S. refusing to care for the queer people ravaged by the AIDS pandemic. “Last Chance for a Slow Dance” is a vision of debilitating loneliness distilled into the simple imagery of the verse: “Flare / flare fakes a flower / a burnt-out shower / no one can see.” 

The ode to Hollywood iconoclast John Cassavetes, on the aptly titled “Cassavetes,” is one of my favorite ideas Fugazi ever explored. The work of Cassavetes, as described by Picciotto, jars you with a presentation of the hyperreal. Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence is one of the only films I’ve treated as background noise on my first watch. I simply couldn’t bear to give full witness to the crumbling psyche Gena Rowlands depicts in the film, as it reminded me too much of my life growing up. 

That is the caliber of art Fugazi are aspiring to. Their aim isn’t to make propaganda but to present you with something that will force your mind to take aim at something new. 

MacKaye often speaks in his talks about the way skateboarding forced him to make new connections, and Fugazi’s music does that for me. On Red Medicine’s opener, the thrilling rush preceded by a blown-out practice tape that sounds more like heavy machinery than punk music, but when the song bursts out, Picciotto sings about the then-new merger between arms conglomerates Martin Marietta and Lockheed, their offices burning down, prison construction, jets crashing, and stained glass, all in the context of asking a crush that simple question in the title. I’d certainly never thought about intimacy between two people as comparable to corporate intrigue. 

But sure, there are moments of directness within Fugazi’s catalog, especially within their earlier material. Repeater, the band's first full album, features the call and response “You wanted everything / you needed everything” on the rager “Greed.” I can understand being put off by how “simple” the lyrics are, especially in comparison to the Picciotto-penned preceding track, “Sieve-Fisted Find,” which decries hollow solutions for desperate problems, but when MacKaye screams “everything is… / greed” to close out the track, you realize there doesn’t need to be more. Why disguise your anger? 

Repeater is one of those first albums a band puts out that feels disingenuous to refer to as a “debut.” The step from their first two EPs, compiled on 13 Songs and the 3 Songs EP, that is now tacked onto the end of Repeater on streaming, is nowhere near as large a gap as that between any of their further albums. Part of this comes from the fact that the tracks on Repeater existed for a long time. “Merchandise” appears on their first demo and the setlist for their first show, and “Reprovisional” is a rerecording of the Margin Walker cut, “Provisional,” but now with Picciotto playing second guitar. The persistence of those tracks indicates the other factor for why the leap from EPs to album doesn’t feel as momentous as other debuts. It’s the same reason even people like my punk-averse girlfriend like “Waiting Room” – Fugazi feel eternal, as if they were dropped into the universe fully formed the moment that bassline starts. 

I say ‘feel’ for a reason, because the myth is always sexier than the truth. If we just had the records, there would be a compelling case for the myth to be the dominant story. But instead, we have the Fugazi Live Series to complicate that story. 

You Don’t Need a Reservation 

The Fugazi Live Series is the outgrowth of the fact that over 800 of the 1000 shows the band played were recorded by their sound people. Initially, they pressed a run of CDs for 30 of their shows, but with internet speeds exponentially increasing, Fugazi were able to create an archive that includes recordings of the vast majority of the shows they played for fans to purchase for the same price as a ticket (you have the option to pay a different amount but if you select it, the price defaults to $6. And everyone said this band doesn’t have a sense of humor).

For someone like me, a Deadhead but for Fugazi, the Live Series is a blessing. Alongside the archive of tracks are thousands of photos, and I’ve scrolled through every one of them. As I sat one night and listened to their set from the 9:30 Club on January 31st, 1996 (a performance with excellent sound quality, some of the tightest playing I’ve heard from them, and a smattering of Red Medicine cuts, highly recommend this one), I flicked through photos from amateurs and pros, of the band playing and hanging out, serious and ever so goofy.

I have a list of all the shows I want to buy from the archive with the various reasons attached: because there are unique lost tracks represented, because it has my favorite tracks present, or because the notes explain that something uniquely Fugazi happened that night, like the famous “ice cream eating motherfuckers” situation at Fort Reno in 1993. 

What show could be more uniquely Fugazi than their first? You don’t even have to pay the 5 dollars to hear them play at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., on September 3rd, 1987 anymore because the Fugazi Live Series has mutated its approach to sharing material once again, with shows being added to streaming services. 

Their first set is, obviously, the band's first set. In comparison to the bassline of “Waiting Room” ripping out of the record, confidently introducing the band to the world, this show is the band taking shaky, hesitant steps. Starting with “Joe #1,” you hear Fugazi at that weird intersection of perfectionism and recklessness every band faces before they have learned who they are. 

I read MacKaye as slightly uncomfortable presenting new songs. He dedicated the show to the eternal backbone of the band, drummer Brandon Canty, who hadn’t even become their official drummer yet. Picciotto isn’t in the band yet, but he is in the audience, and Mackaye makes a joke about having him start a fight so they can end early in case the set is going poorly. It doesn’t go poorly, but there are moments that feel half-formed due to the nature of the set. That’s because MacKaye was tired of not playing; Fugazi had to make this step. 

“You can’t be what you were / so you better start living the life / that you’re talking about”
– “Bad Mouth” from 7 Songs, Ian MacKaye

That night, Fugazi played eight songs, three of which never made it past the demo stage, two were on 1990’s 3 Songs, one from Repeater, “Waiting Room,” and one that did not see a proper release until 2001. The one Repeater track here, “Merchandise,” has MacKaye ad-libbing a line during the bridge that they will add sounds of cash registers ringing over this part when they record it (they didn’t). On “Furniture,” he calls out part changes to bassist Joe Lally and Canty. Many of the parts MacKaye called for that night do not appear on the version released in 2001, but the lyrics are the same. Listening to this show at the Wilson Center feels more like eavesdropping on the band in their practice space. 

In that spirit, listening to this show has more in common with Instrument, the playful album of demos that soundtracks Jem Cohen’s brilliant documentary on the band. That record is full of scraps the band is goofing around on, like their algorithm-fueled hit “I’m So Tired.” It is on Instrument and this show at the Wilson Center that you’ll hear the band at their most direct and least refined, like on “Turn Off Your Guns,” where if you miss MacKaye introducing it as a song about not killing yourself, you’ll get it when he sings “Nothing in life / could be that bad.” 

“Turn Off Your Guns” is not a bad song by any means, but it is apparent from the start that it is one of the first the band ever wrote. They develop the sentiment into a more nuanced plea on 7 Songs’ beautiful “Bad Mouth,” while the melody and bassline are scavenged for Steady Diet of Nothing’s closer “KYEO.” 

Have You Ever Been Free? 

It is, of course, on “Waiting Room” that you hear the most potential in this show. Even with the band playing the song at nearly half the speed of the recording, even lacking Picciotto’s hype man vocals, even without the room shouting the lyrics back to the band like they would at every subsequent show. Even with all of those missing pieces, “Waiting Room” is still “Waiting Room.” 

I recognize I’m slipping into hagiography about a band that fiercely would deny being mythologized, but what can you expect from a girl over 2,000 words into an essay about how much she loves Fugazi? Plus, it is a song that changed my life. 

MacKaye introduces “Waiting Room” by saying, “This is a song about what the heck we could do if we did,” and telling the audience they can bend their knees to this one and move. Could you imagine “Waiting Room” requiring an introduction when, for so many, it is the introduction to the whole world of Fugazi, the opening salvo of their campaign against the music industry, against complacency, against corporate exploitation, against sexism and racism?

But that time it was just the first time “Waiting Room” was shown to the unsuspecting public—and of any introduction to “Waiting Room,” that one is the best. 

“But I don’t sit idly by / I’m planning a big surprise”
– “Waiting Room” from 7 Songs, Ian MacKaye

Compare that introduction to how at the start of their final show at The Forum in London, on November 4th, 2001, the other show included in the initial streaming upload (each month the band promises to add more shows), Fugazi seamlessly transitioned from “Margin Walker” into “Waiting Room,” at the moment the drums drop out from the prior song MacKaye starts building a bridge through furious strumming. His guitar masks Lally’s signature bassline, the suggestion of the track everyone wants to hear held at bay until that drum fill kicks us off. 

To answer my earlier question, the last Fugazi show is the most uniquely Fugazi. On the eve of their hiatus, Fugazi string together one of their most impeccably performed, masterfully sequenced, ideologically fierce sets ever. But first, it starts the way any good Fugazi set should: with MacKaye stepping to the mic and saying “good evening ladies and gentlemen, we are Fugazi from Washington, D.C.,” before bantering with the audience about Italian food. 

When they do eventually start the show, they play with no breaks. The prior example of how they strung together “Margin Walker” and “Waiting Room” is just one excellent moment in a night full of them. Transitions span the length of their career; jumping from Repeater deep cut “Greed” to barely year-old Argument track “Full Disclosure,” late-career End Hits instrumental art rock “Arpeggiator” into mid-career In On the Kill Taker screed against genocidal imperialism “Smallpox Champion,” and Red Medicine dub freakout “Version” to 7 Songs capstone “Glue Man.” They do this all without a plan, the band having never written out a setlist. 

To me, the lack of setlists is the best display of Fugazi’s artistry. The shows become a feedback loop of the band pumping a signal out to the audience and taking the crowd’s response to decide where to move next, how long to stretch a track’s noise section, and how a song gets played. 

The other beautiful thing about Fugazi’s setlist-less approach is that they played everything. I’ll queue up a show and see a track like “Stacks,” that if you put a gun to my head and asked me on a good day what it sounded like you’d have to shoot me, but when it comes up in listening to a set in my head I’m screaming along that “America is just a word but I use it.”

My favorite thing about having access to these shows is that they present songs in brand-new ways. Take the performance of mid-tempo stomper “Blueprint” in the last show, played at almost double time, but in the third verse they insert a dramatic rest before Picciotto shouts “say yes” for a stretch four times longer than on the record, and elongates the “yes” in question till the tension snaps and the band comes charging back in. On Repeater, “Blueprint” seethes, full of barely repressed anger at the conventions we live under and those unwilling to challenge them. In its last minute, that anger boils over into a direct callout. But in the live setting, “Blueprint” starts at the height it reaches on the record. In their last set, “Blueprint” comes directly after Picciotto and MacKaye have had to chastise another set of crowd surfers for their “100-year-old moronic bullshit.” “Blueprint” is a direct provocation to those audience members: Are you going to continue engaging with the world in a way that privileges your experience over other people's safety? It’s all just a matter of saying no or yes. 

Sewing Your Own Shirt 

On their final album, The Argument, Fugazi made clear what they will always say ‘no’ to. The radio chatter and cello that frame the album set the mood for a somber, haunting affair. The Argument is Fugazi at their slowest and least musically aggressive. These qualities do not make the album lack: “Cashout” is creaky like the homes waiting to be demolished that are haunted by the people evicted for the good of “development,” “The Kill” languid like the obedient soldier waiting for orders who has done this all before, “Strangelight” whirls in the inhumanity of industry. The atmosphere of their music has never reflected the inhumane spectre of exploitation more.

But it is the final moment of The Argument, the title track, that is most important to me here, specifically the second verse: 

“It’s all about strikes now / so here’s what’s striking me / that some punk could argue / some moral ABC’s / when people are catching / what bombers release / I’m on a mission / to never agree.” 

As I write this, we are days out from Trump bombing Iran in an effort to aid and abet the genocide Israel is committing against the Palestinians. The consent for the strikes is being manufactured through over-inflated fears of nuclear warheads that have been claimed for decades. All the while, the Democrats hem and haw at the fact that his act was unconstitutional. They couldn’t possibly be mad at the act, though, “I’m sure you have reasons, a rational defence.” 

Like MacKaye sang: I will never agree. For as long as I have been politically conscious, I have been anti-war, and I cannot abide anyone willing to blind themselves to the crimes of war so they can continue living comfortably. 

“Argument” is the only logical bookend to the ideological arc sparked by “Waiting Room.” Fugazi started as an attempt to divine a true path through life. “Argument” sees them living up to that standard, fiercely refusing to accept the dominant mode just for the sake of it. 

To the end, Fugazi held their ground. At the end of their last show in 2002, the band stretches out “Glue Man,” leaving the audience with a song asking them to be not just a face in the crowd, but members of a community. To not silo themselves into their homes and minds, but to exist in context. This was a band who were always in the room with their audience. Regardless of how tall the stage was, Fugazi were on the level with the people who paid to see them perform. 

I was once talking with my coworker about our favorite old punk bands, and I mentioned that the only bands I wished I could have seen live in their existence were The Clash and Fugazi. He turned and said, ‘There is still a chance with Fugazi.’

But the truth is, I don’t want Fugazi to reunite. 

In a recent piece for the Quietus about the new film on the band We Are Fugazi From Washington D.C., JR Moores writes, “everything has grown worse in Fugazi’s absence. It could be coincidence. And it isn’t entirely their fault. The pattern was set in motion by Reaganite neoliberalism… A few more post-hardcore records and a string of all-ages concerts wouldn’t have prevented the inevitable calamities. Would they?” Moore continues, “Still, I can’t help remembering Fugazi as a guiding hand which, in its own modest way, temporarily curbed the extremities.”

Since their indefinite hiatus, Fugazi have come to be talked about in these mythic proportions because it is so rare for anyone to get by on their own terms in this world. Fugazi have become moral guides for people, me included, because they showed us it is possible to treat each other fairly and succeed. 

“How many times have you felt like a bookcase / sitting in a living room gathering dust / full of thoughts already written?”
– “Furniture” from Furniture, Ian MacKaye

Look anywhere and you’ll see Fugazi’s influence. From Jeff Rosenstock evolving their DIY anti-capitalist ethics for the digital age with Quote Unquote Records, to recent hometown benefit shows from bands like Turnstile raising money for Healthcare for the Homeless and Ekko Astral raising money for organizations advocating for transgender rights. If you are reading this right now, I guarantee you that the work of Ian MacKaye, Guy Picciotto, Joe Lally, and Brendon Canty has influenced the music you listen to. In New York, I’m grateful to have a scene of punks who refuse to do things the prescribed way, like Pop Music Fever Dream, ok, cuddle, Crush Fund, One Hour Photo, Ultra Deluxe, Eevie Echoes, Avatareden, Adult Human Females, P.H.0, and so many more. 

Hell, Fugazi was a major part of why I started writing a blog about music. I didn’t want to sit around doing nothing, waiting for the opportunity to contribute. Fugazi helped me see that I had to make something for myself, and it has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve done in my life. 

So, no, I don’t want Fugazi to come back because we do not need Fugazi back. What we need is to remember that these are just stupid fucking words—what you do with them, and how you get out of the waiting room, are all up to you. 

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Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack,all my selves aligned. You can follow her on insta@Lilllianmweber.

OK Cool – Chit Chat | Album Review

Take A Hike Records

I’m the kind of music fan that does a lot of wishcasting, but I feel like I rarely see my wishes come true. For example, every year I claim that we’re going to get new music from Paul Westerberg, and every year I’m wrong. Whenever there’s a mystery slot at a festival, I say that it’s going to be a Jets to Brazil reunion, and every time it’s somebody else. Things just don’t ever pan out how I hope. Well, that is until now. I’m happy to report that I finally got one. I finally got my wish.

Before we go on, I need to give you a little backstory. In 2021, I started going to local emo shows here in Chicago, and I came across this band, OK Cool. Off the bat, I really liked them, a fondness largely indebted to their track “Five Finger Exploding Heart Technique,” which stuck with me more than any other song I’d come across in my early days of exploring the scene. In the years since, OK Cool have put out a handful of singles and EPs, and though I’ve enjoyed all of these releases, one thing I will say is that the band haven’t really strayed too far from their established brand of wobbly off-kilter emo. On the one hand, I get it—if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—but on the other hand, something in the band’s recent live shows has had me wondering if they might excel with a slightly different approach. 

This thought came to me after seeing the band’s cover of “Say It Ain’t So,” which has become a setlist staple as of late. While the song’s intro and verses don’t actually stray too far from their usual lane, the chorus, more forceful and power chord driven, showed me a side of OK Cool I hadn’t previously realized I wanted to see. It got me wondering, what if OK Cool made music that sounded more like that? A little more forward momentum, a little more oomph? It became something that I craved. And now, with their debut record Chit Chat, we have it. It’s exactly the record I’d been hoping for, and it’s a total level up. 

Perhaps the best example of what I’m talking about is the album’s lead single, the tough to accurately type “Waawooweewaa.” It’s a song that wastes no time, shooting forward from the jump with more energy and drive than we’re used to seeing from the band. There’s a ton of confidence in their approach, and the song rocks as a result. One thing I particularly like about this big start is that it allows for contrast down the line. There’s a moment about halfway through the track where things fall away, leaving us with a spacier section that’s more typical of OK Cool’s sound; though we’ve heard the band like this many times before, it feels fresher here, the contrast putting things into a new context. As things pick up again and Bridget Stiebris sings “I wish I could say fuck it, and walk out into the lake,” we get some real edge in the vocals, further elevating things in a way that’s super satisfying. 

Though its pace is less frenetic, “Jeans (I Get It Now)” is another song where Chit Chat’s tight, forward-moving songwriting really comes through. What particularly sticks out to me is the Bully-esque backing vocal accents that punctuate the line “I feel the same” whenever it comes around, an addition that’s small on paper but does a lot for the song. Also of note is the midpoint guitar interplay, which is maybe my favorite instrumental section on the whole record.

While “Waawooweewaa” and “Jeans (I Get It Now)” showed me a side OK Cool I’d been hoping to see, mid-record track “Loop” stood out with an approach that took me totally by surprise. Built on a base of piano, soft toms, and acoustic guitar, “Loop” finds the band painting from a totally new sonic palette. The understated approach to instrumentation on the track leaves room for a super compelling vocal melody, and I was left more impressed than ever by Stiebris’ voice; I would love to hear more stuff like this from the band in the future.     

All of these effective touches are illustrative of OK Cool’s maturity; though I don’t think there’s ultimately a right or wrong way to approach the timing of one’s first record, Chit Chat shows the benefit that comes from a band living with themselves for a while before making the jump to an LP. This isn’t a band that finally has enough songs to meet some sort of arbitrary length requirement; this is a band that knows both what they want to do and how to execute it, and the whole record feels complete as a result. 

Beyond this track-by-track fidelity, Chit Chat benefits as a whole from some great choices in sequencing. The last two songs, “Fading Out Forever” and “Last,” work particularly well in conjunction, helping to close the record out strong. In some ways, “Fading Out Forever” actually reminds me of “Say It Ain’t So” — in particular, the contrasting character of verse and chorus — and it features my favorite OK Cool hook to date. In the last twenty seconds or so, the song winds down in a way that’s completely unexpected, acting as a perfect off-ramp to the closer. The way that the opening guitar and vocal pairing of “Last” hits post-“Fading Out Forever” is just perfect, and the song is 100% made stronger by its placement. 

As the final note of “Last” rang out and I reflected on Chit Chat, I immediately wanted to go back in and listen to it again. Like I said before, it’s a total level up; more focused and more realized. It’s exactly the record that I had hoped OK Cool would make. As a listener, you need to accept that artists won’t always evolve the way that you want them to; you can’t lose sleep over every change in direction that doesn’t fit your taste. Ultimately, how a band progresses is not about the listener; it’s about the band. With this said, sometimes the stars align and a band grows exactly the way you, as a fan, had hoped they would, and when that happens, you just have to bask in it. There’s nothing better. That’s what's happening here with me and Chit Chat, and it’s a record I’m so happy we have.  

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Josh Ejnes is a writer and musician living in Chicago. He has a blog about cassette tapes called Tape Study that you can find here, and he also makes music under the name Cutaway Car.

Pacing – PL*NET F*TNESS | Album Review

Asian Man Records

In her essay “The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy,” critic and philosopher Becca Rothfeld compares the body horror in David Cronenberg films to falling in love with her husband, writing that “the apartness of this person and this person alone is transmuted into injury. Desire is one cataclysm that renders us alien in our bodies.” Rothfeld is specifically referring to her sexual desire for her husband, but that desire to merge extends beyond the realm of fleshly pleasures. Every time I have fallen in love with someone, romantically or platonically, I’ve wanted to know everything – to be brought into the folds of my beloved's mind. On her second official LP, PL*NET F*TNESS, San Jose anti-folk artist Pacing has collected a series of songs about straining against the boundaries of bureaucracy, iPad screens, and death in search of the kind of connection that feels like a merging of spirits and bodies. 

Pacing is the project of Katie McTigue, who, after a series of singles and a mixtape, released her debut album in 2023, the impeccably titled real poetry is always about plants and birds and trees and the animals and milk and honey breathing in the pink but real life is behind a screen. real poetry is an album full of songs about an anxious mind trying to survive. The gorgeous “The Attic / Ghostbusters” sees her fantasizing about turning into a ghost so she can’t take up any space. When she does try to take up space on “Live / Laugh / Love,” she demonstrates the feeble bravado of anxious artistic folks crumbling with the perfect line “If you don’t want to be my friend / I don’t blame you that’s probably smart / but if you don’t like this song / why don’t you just rip out my heart.” 

PL*NET F*TNESS continues those anxious threads with its lead single and title track, where we find McTigue cleaning up her father’s affairs after he’s passed, specifically struggling with turning his phone back on “‘cause I don’t really wanna talk to anyone who knows you better than I do.” McTigue sings with such haunted desire from the perspective of company policy that requires in-person membership cancellation, but it also sounds like her struggle to let go. “Pl*net F*tness,” the song, is the perfect distillation of what makes Pacing such a compelling project; as McTigue mixes bright, upbeat instrumentals with her expressive voice, singing laments over her inability to call her doctor or face the clerk at the gym. 

“Pl*net F*tness” is just one example on this record that demonstrates why McTigue is one of our best chroniclers of modern disconnection. That schism is obvious when she sings “Sometimes the best part of my day is being in the car” on the jangly new wave “Nothing! (I wanna do).” Backed by fellow San Jose rockers Star 99 on “Love Island,” McTigue derides the banality of interpersonal office relationships, singing, “everyone is talking past each other / and not saying anything,” and that throughout the day, “I never talk to anybody who I wanna talk to.” It is all the sucky shit we have to deal with every day that makes it worthwhile when you do get to talk to your best friend and slip into that easy flow about your favorite shows or sex dreams and insecurities, as highlighted on “Things we bought tickets for.” When my best friend was in New York for work and we got to see each other in person for the first time in two years, it was such a relief to slip back into that patter we had established when we met in freshman year of high school because it meant we still loved each other despite the distance. 

How McTigue incisively illuminates interpersonal innate understanding through minute interactions is one of her greatest strengths. Despite hearing the Jeff Rosenstock-esque “parking ticket song” already on this years songs mini album, the line about McTigue and her husband laughing together after she freezes up over a forgotten parking ticket is one of the most euphoric moments on PL*NET F*TNESS. McTigue paints a picture of the non-judgmental intimacy we all want out of love with this anecdote, an example that love isn’t in the big gestures, but in showing your fleshy underbelly and trusting it will be held gently. The other line that gives me a similar feeling is on the fingerpicked first half of “True Crime / birthday song,” when McTigue sings “I never think about these things / like did I lock the door / when you're there / because I know you did.” The sense of ease and peace these lines evoke is the same as I felt when a friend recently told me that when they’re around me they feel comfortable, confident, and at ease. As an anxious woman, uncomfortable everywhere, it was the best compliment I had ever received because that is how I feel around them.

The other thing about McTigue is that she is a decidedly funny songwriter. Take, for example, “Mastering Positional Chess,” where McTigue sings about a parasocial relationship with a chess YouTuber and her declaration that “I’m very reasonable.” McTigue is full of quippy one-liners from “you say you need space / well I hate space / I think it’s a waste of / tax dollars” on the opener to her proclamation that, “I’m on Strike! / Mentally!” on “Love Island.” It is also inherently amusing to repurpose Mr. Rogers’ lyrics from a song about kids not needing to worry about getting sucked down the drain of their tubs and set them against a disquieting instrumental, interpreting them as about a cult leader. “Never Go Down” could have come across as a silly bit, but it is my favorite track on the record because it is a gorgeous statement of belief in someone (even if they are a cult leader), that I could imagine on mixtapes between young lovers. 

On PL*NET F*TNESS, Pacing presents a vision of intimate relationships as a panacea for societal malaise and personal anxiety. When there is nothing you wanna do, Pacing is here with some suggestions. 

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Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her Substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her on Instagram @lillianmweber.

Pretty Bitter – Pleaser | Album Review

Tiny Engines

Washington D.C. is covered in monuments and artifacts — libraries dedicated to preservation, tours through important memorials, documentaries that weave the past together, and constant conversations about what D.C. used to be like. The whole city is a nostalgic town, drenched in continuous reminders of what stood there once upon a time and what histories remain. I propose it’s time for a new monument in D.C. — a dollhouse.

For Pretty Bitter’s new album, vocalist Mel Bleker and bassist Miri Tyler spent the past year decorating a dollhouse by hand. The final structure depicted on the cover is a colorful two-story home where each room looks lived in: the bed isn’t made, the refrigerator door is swung open (running up the dollhouse’s electricity bill and pissing off the doll roommates, I’m sure), and a bong sits abandoned on the living room table. The dollhouse is also full of smaller details: a real Pretty Bitter poster is pinned to the bedroom wall, a second, tinier dollhouse is tucked away in the attic, there’s a wine glass dropped on the kitchen floor, and the album’s title is scrawled on the bathroom wall: Pleaser.

Pleaser is the sophomore album from D.C.’s hometown heroes, Pretty Bitter, a band that I have had the honor of seeing countless times over the years I’ve lived in the city. If there’s one word I would use to describe them, it’s unflinching. There’s a resiliency to their music and a playful stubbornness to their attitude that I have watched them exude in every space they occupy. Their latest release triumphantly carries that confidence as a dreamy pop album that demands to be dissected – a perfect amalgamation of dance rock, synth-driven disco, bubbly ballads, and spunky emo centered around the clarion call of vocalist Mel Bleker.

“The Coroner's Song” opens the album with bleak table setting and tragic lyricism, like Bleker’s lingering “I didn’t die to prove something, I just thought that there was more.” One track later, the lead single “Thrill Eater” is where the lyric’s unexpected, and at times grotesque, imagery starts to antagonize the otherwise upbeat sound of the band. Against the pluck of a banjo and the thick strum of a bass, Bleker asks the haunting question, “What happens to a body when it’s scared?” followed by a sharp “What is your ailment, is it fixable in kind?” their voice slicing through the short syllables of “kind.” In the chorus, Bleker promises, “I can be your thrill eater / Broken bone baby  / With a splinter for a spine.” This lyricism is the gravitational center of the album, an instrument of its own as Bleker’s voice cuts through the sparkly and rhythmic sounds of the band, creating a texture of its own.

“Thrill Eater” is also where the title of the album comes into play. Bleker offers to be “your thrill, your pleaser” but begs this subject to “take as much as you want / as long as it’s not mine.” Pleaser is a really charged word. There are some sexual connotations and some pathetic connotations, but I think the first inclination is to think of a missing first word — people. A People Pleaser. In Bleker’s lyricism however, the songs deal primarily in the aftermath, leaving the pleaser without people and reconciling that loss. Time forces the pleaser to move forward alone.

From there, the album shifts into the ethereal “Outer Heaven Dude Ranch,” where Bleker proclaims “Time isn’t a fighter, but it will get its way / I’m getting older every word I say” over Jason Hayes’ endlessly emphatic cymbal crashes. From there, the group keeps the energy high, moving into the similarly relentless beat of “Tommy Deluxe Goes Hollywood,” which blends D.C. post-hardcore guitar feedback with the return of former bandmate Zack Be’s banjo.

If any line has stuck with me, it’s the unimpressed way Bleker sings “If it’s a joke, I didn’t get it” on mid-album cut “Cardiac.” The performance of these consistently raw lyrics varies throughout the album, while some songs use Bleker’s kind voice to undercut the menacing lyrics; other songs, like “Cardiac” or the following “I Hope You Do,” have a very direct and conversational tone. This makes the heart-thumping declarations all the more salient, like on “I Hope You Do,” where the lyrics lay out, “They will make from our ruins a monument, a reminder to ourselves that worship does not keep any temple from falling apart.”

Evan Weiss and Simon Small produced the album, and their co-production shines through the entire project, but especially in the back half as the band’s trademark synth bubbles and bursts through the violent yet fantastical “Bodies Under The Rose Garden,” and the unsuspectingly tragic 90s alt-rock track “Letter To Tracy In Her Bed.” 

While the band has rearranged a bit since the creation of this album, the lineup has solidified with Kira Campbell joining on guitar and Ekko Astral’s Liam Hughes on keyboard; their live shows remain a must-see performance. This summer, Pretty Bitter played both the inaugural Liberation Weekend and returned to Faux to obsessed crowds. When I hear songs like “Textbook,” where each part is so clear, all I can think of is the perfect harmony that the band works in live, each member in lockstep with a contagious smile.

Photo by Bailey Payne

The album ends on an extended leitmotif, “Outer Heaven,” which calls back to its twin “Outer Heaven Dude Ranch.” However, instead of using the refrain “Time isn’t a lover in the way it likes to play / I’m getting older every due I pay” like the initial song, “Outer Heaven” finishes the album on “Time isn’t a bandage / If you send it away / I will not abandon myself today.” This final song feels like stepping out of your own darkness and stretching into the sun. 

I’ve spent a lot of time deciding what this album, something so dense and bright, is about and what it means. I’ve thought about the dollhouse on the cover, something crafted with love, care, and time. I thought about Bleker’s exposed lyrics tied to the band’s dancing beat. I thought about how fuck-you-fun their shows are. And this has brought me to deciding that Pretty Bitter wants you to make that unbreakable promise with them: I will not abandon myself today.

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Caro Alt (she/her) is from New Orleans, Louisiana, and if she could be anyone in The Simpsons, she would be Milhouse.