Slices

Modern Bride [7-inch] (2011)

Sloane Daley

It kind of grinds my gears, or maybe it gets my goat; I often get the two confused you see the grinding and the getting, the gearing and the goating. Either way the kerfuffle has to do with everyone flicking their bean over OFF! Don't get me wrong, they are a fine band and good at what they do but people treat them as if they are the only current hardcore punk band worth their weight in piss, but there are many a current band playing the hard and fast rules all the while carrying pissy weight. Pittsburgh's Slices is one of those bands and this teaser 7-inch for their upcoming LP Still Cruising certainly wets the pallet (hopefully not with the liquid they are carrying but I shan't protest too much either way).

The title track lifts off with the kind of Nuggets by way of noise rock riff that for anyone who wasn't sleeping will be familiar with from last year's Cruising. It rips and rages for it's two-minute run with enough peaks and valleys to keep the adolescent mind from wandering and a mesmerizing bass groove throughout to make the petty theft and colostomy bag crowd from getting antsy. The real golden ticket in this package is the flipside, "Chump Change." I could go so far as calling it the feel good hit of the summer--if your summer was filled with layoffs, yelling at your landlord and genital warts, but every sort of life needs a soundtrack does it not? I believe it was Voltaire who said that. I myself have probably been guilty of heaping praise upon guitar playing that didn't deserve it but I'll step back for a second into the realm of truth bombs and fact checks to say that the guitar playing on this song sticks to your ribs like a meal made with love after a lifetime of naked twister and beach blanket bingo.

You should get this and completely love it front to back in a way only a man with magic underpants and seven wives can or turn in your record collection for some Yanni or some shit. Someone call the hyperbole police, cuz something done got exaggerated up in here!