It's the Bush era again. Don't ask me how we got here. We wouldn't be if I had my druthers. This wasn't my call, but here we are... back in the sh!t*- endless wars, secret black sites operated with impunity and without democratic oversight, and brutal fights over immigration statute, all transpiring against the backdrop of precipitous Imperial decline. The only difference is that there doesn't seem to be much in the way of music that's up to capturing the moment (not that it would help!). I recall that Ol' Uncle Hank received a collective rap on the nose for suggesting that 45's first term would "make punk rock great again" (and he kinda deserved it too!), and on reflection, the Anti-Bush anthems that swarmed the culture during the Second Gulf War were more opiate than any sort of overture to action, but still... It's hard for me not to miss the energy and resonance with resistance that music had in response to the ascendancy of a neocon to the office of the presidency. That period was like Yalta for punks and hippies, as they finally set aside their differences and combined their creative forces against a common enemy. This climactic front of righteous freeform aggression and culturally cross-pollinated clarion-confrontationalism, favored by Alternative Tenticals, among others, sort of fizzled out as the protests wore down and the population grew accustomed to living with the reality of constant foreign conflict. Every scripted drama's climax has its falling action though... as well as its depressing and inevitable sequel, and boy is that ever true for American politics, writ large.** Still, I miss it, all of it, and there are hardly any acts attempting to revive the vibrancy of antagonism present in the early '00s.. unless you're willing to look in a place like... oh, I don't know... Portland, Oregon? If you did care to peel back the petals of the Rose City's underside, there you might find a little group called Nasalrod. Collaborating with the social-skewering Elastic Man-core of the Bay Area's Victim's family for a split last year, I was shocked and delighted to encounter their aggravated eccentricities and poignant spirit through said Modern Meatspace EP. Nasalrod's style is a roughly hewn twill of nightclub drama, hardcore punk, and cold-blooded, amphetamine-spiked noise rock, that is stubbornly spazzy and vehement in its relentless criticism of all that exists (and plenty of things that have yet to transpire). The fluidity with which Nasalrod blends commentary with a twisted logic and approach to composition is a compliment to the rubber lashing and shout-you-down with verbal flak approach of Victims Family, but is equally compelling, with a playful tendancy towards catch and release dynamics, where the listener is drawn in by more subdued passages, only to be blasted off their soles when they consumate the crescendo. Like on their track "The Maker," which opens with a fishtailing baseline that seems to be goading you into an arm-wrestling match before pouring a pan of hot grease in your lap in the form of a seethingly assertive guitar line- you're not going anywhere once that guitar hits, your initial distraction has lead to your wranglers being fused with the polypropylene base of your chair- they can do with you what they want at that point.... and they will! Appropriately, "The Maker" has an overall sort of fever-dream, tent-revival meets Barnum & Bailey vibe that helps give an absurdist overtone to the hopeless dredge through the fathoms of discount spirituality it describes, conveying a darkly comedic quality that is consistently present throughout their half of the split. "The Maker" is followed by the jacklighting troll hunt "Get A Life (Or A Coffin)," which combines high-flying Cheap Trick-esque arena-ready anthemics with a swarming sensibility for guerrilla theater that makes it feel like the band could descend on their targets nearly as quickly as their quarry can reply to an OP from someone other than one of their two dozen mutals. "Redefined Apocalypse" follows with a dire rhythmic display of gritty, imploding grandure as the group scrambles up one collapsing card deck of lies, only to find themselves cresting atop another, eventually coasting downhill into a vivarium of bespoke caustic approval that acts as a trash compactor for the human soul, a trap for consciousness called "Online Validation." Nasalrod concludes their half of the split with the grinding Bungle-bust funk*** of "New Education," an exasperated exploration of the degradation of epistemology and pedagogy in the brain-smoothing acid ponds of the information age. A willingness to lash out in all directions like an exploding porcupine, armed with whatever cultural tools are handy, is the type of rogue aspiration that I recall punk rock personify in periods past, and for what it's worth, I feel like Nasalrod embodies this ethos as much as any endgangered species can still claim to have any consequence for its environment, despite dwindling numbers against overwelming odds. Sometimes, the only solace you can take in a decaying empire is that the hegemony might circle the drain slightly faster than yourself, teasing the pleasure of watching it slither into oblivion slightly ahead of yourself. Of course, knowing where you're headed opens the opportunity to beat against the current in the hope of preserving what little there is left to save. It's a nice thought, provided no cowboy actually pulls the trigger on WWIII before you can escape the suck.
