Album Review

Pissed Jeans - Half Divorced

Item: Pissed Jeans - Half Divorced
Rating: 3.5

The sound of a band at boiling point.

Reviewer: Charlotte Marston

Released: 1st March 2024

Label: Sub Pop

Much like the milieu of bad news that continues to plague phone screens and news channels, Pissed Jeans’ sixth studio album offers very little room to come up for air. Filled with a seeping paranoia and the ability to take the mundanities of modern life and bludgeon any remaining joy right out of them, ‘Half Divorced’ is a bolshy barrage played out over the course of 12 short, sharp tracks. Opener ‘Killing All the Wrong People’ kicks up the dust with a hail of revving guitars, scratchy melodies and scraping clatter, while tracks like ‘Anti-Sapio’ and ‘Monsters’ utilise squawking sirens and whirring, extraterrestrial sounds to add an abstract edge to the shame and societal exasperation that seethes at their core.

Elsewhere, Pissed Jeans draw straight from the hardcore punk playbook as screeching reverb plays the foil to Matt Korvette’s barrelling provocations on ‘(Stolen) Catalytic Convertor’, howling riffs ricochet against contorted, spat-through vitriol on ‘Alive With Hate’ and ‘Junktime’ serves up a kamikaze of guttural noise and scuzzy, incessant instrumentals. Veering from the personal (‘Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt’) to the politically-charged (‘Everywhere Is Bad’), ‘Half Divorced’ is the sound of a band at boiling point, with their whiplash wit and unbridled ferocity slicing through the tensions that permeate marriage, parenthood, failed relationships and the treachery of contemporary society. But, for all its butane-fuelled brutality, the band manage to find slightly less tumultuous ground by the time closing anthem ‘Moving On’ has whipped around. The record’s most - or, really, its only - upbeat offering, the track sees melodic guitar lines and shiny pop-punk stylings chug toward a heady singalong chorus that feels a lot like being jostled by sweaty strangers on a rowdy night at a karaoke bar. The feeling of finding collective and community amongst the chaos is inescapable and, despite the eternal hellscape we find ourselves living in, it seems Pissed Jeans are hell-bent on providing just that.

Tags: Pissed Jeans, Reviews, Album Reviews