I'm in the right state of mind to be writing about this record, so here goes.* NYC's World War IX is about as blunt as you can get in terms of influences, displaying them proudly like a black eye in the morning after winning a fight with a bouncer the night before. They play mainline, plugin-'n-blitz, early Black Flag-inspired punk and are not shy about it. The kind of stuff that sounds both comic and pissed off in equivalent tonnage. Their EP Phoning It In lifts off in a drunken haze with opener "Fire for Partying" which has a "TV Party" sorta of swing to it with a splash of the reckless, hedonistic chase of the first four OFF! EPs to give the gang-vocal fueled tale of fatuity the punt it requires to turn over into full-on, red-eyed, regretless folly. Two of the three remaining original tracks on the EP deal with the problems of aging men as they drift farther away from their wilder, oat-sowing years. The addiction adage "Coke Machine" is a bumbling, wildly groovy number with some very bossy energy about needing a soda fix to get through the day, while "Portrait Of Sobriety" confronts the listener with the parable of a gentleman who has managed to survive an entire week without a drop of alcohol and now believes he's the visage of Jesus Christ himself in the second coming, a bombastically braggadocious piece with a prickly, blunderbuss flow. The second and final tracks also pair well thematically, wherein the slippery and franticly off-kilter "Larry's House" depicts a neglectful, chaotic environment where teens can chill and get tanked on illicit substances, while the buzzy slug-fest "NYC Tonight," a GG Alin cover, presses the rager the band has built up out into the streets to paint the Big Apple an even darker shade of warm, sticky red. World War IX feels like one of those groups that will always be there- a fact I attribute to their classic compound of influences, as well as their sound, but more so because of how much fun they appear to be having on this record. If I could make a record like this, I don't know that I'd have the motivation to do much else with my life afterward... outside of hitting the studio to pump out another. It seems like some of their members have moved on to other projects for the time being, but I don't think World War IX will ever be gone for good. With how messed up and serious the state of the world is getting by the day, we need their brand of brash jackassery more now than ever to help lighten the mood.
