Pissed Jeans

Oh what beautiful noise! Hope For Men takes elements of the Stooges, MC5 and Hüsker Dü and combines them with walls of screaming guitars and punishing rhythms to create what could be one of the best albums of the summer. The songs range from fast-tempo opener "People Person” to the almost painfully slow and creepy "Scrapbooking,” which takes a spooky piano ballad and buries it behind massive amounts of feedback while vocalist Matt Korvette spits and growls over top of the entire messy affair. Pissed Jeans’ greatest strength is their ability to take almost atonal song structures and weave them into grandly introspective and dramatic musical numbers while never taking themselves too seriously. The band name alone hints at a tongue firmly planted in cheek, which allows for even the darkest moments of this disc to have a sense of playfulness and fun that’s lacking from a lot of music these days.