Why Love Now

Chronique

Lumbering in like a diminishing storm on the world's muggiest night, "Waiting on My Horrible Warning," the lead-off track from the Pennsylvania gutter rock unit's fifth studio outing, provides the listener with no relief. Why Love Now's mission statement of "taking aim at the mundane discomforts of modern life — from fetish webcams to office-supply deliveries" is implemented with extreme prejudice on sludgy, anti-hope anthems like "The Bar Is Low," "Ignorecam," and "Have You Ever Been Furniture." The sad banality of sex, food, and existential crisis looms large over the proceedings, and frontman/orator Matt Korvette, whose tortured, Lemmy-meets-GG Allin croak suggests lungs lined with barbed wire, is the perfect emotional wasteland tour guide. Whether it's heartbreak ("Not Even Married"), pegging ("Cold Whip Cream"), or climate change ("Worldwide Marine Asset Financial Analyst"), he lays bare the futility of it all with cruel sarcasm and the nuance of a seasoned executioner -- special guest author and poet Lindsay Hunter nearly steals the show with her gender-politics satire/monologue "I'm a Man." Sonically, the band follows suit, delivering a barrage of crusty and atonal punk racket that's lent some serious heft by producers Arthur Rizk (Eternal Champion, Goat Semen) and no wave legend Lydia Lunch. It's easily the meatiest the band has sounded to date, but it doesn't deviate from the punishing, aural miasma that Pissed Jeans have been stewing in since their 2006 debut. It's grim stuff, but it's shot through with just enough dark humor and nervy, pit-worthy energy to propel a proper madcap night out; just don't expect to wake up the next morning.

© James Christopher Monger /TiVo