Parkinglot - At Least I'm Trying

There’s a strange, cathartic celebration in expressing sadness through music. If it’s done right, the emotion in a song is as real as the moment it was written; yet in sharing that sadness with the world, whether through a record or a live show, it becomes a universal event. The burden becomes just a little easier to bear, because band and listener become one in the experience.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of sharing in that odyssey with CT’s own Parkinglot, both at live shows and through their debut record At Least I’m Trying. These three punks throw everything they have into music, beating their instruments into splinters by the end of each song. Guitars squeal with feedback against a crunchy overdriven bass, and the drums smash beneath vocals that range from a resigned sigh to furious yells. Tunes like “Song for My Mind and Other Things I’ve Recently Lost” or “984 Miles” barrel at you like freight trains: relentless, and almost frightening in how powerful they are. 

At Least I’m Trying is an undeniably raw record, a factor that not only lends to its energy, but reflects the intensity that Parkinglot is known for. “Conversations” and “Den 2” feature gentle sections of quiet repose, yet there is always an underlying urgency that quickly rises to the surface. These tunes are brutally honest in their presentation, and Parkinglot’s use of dynamics in their compositions, starting small blazes that rapidly grow into infernos, forces the ear and the heart to catch up, to get on the level or get left behind. 

 

Much of Parkinglot’s music revolves around making the best of a dire situation, and the lyrics on At Least I’m Trying scream of struggle, desperation, and disconnection. There is zero pretense in the vocals—every shout is vicious, every word is honest almost to a fault. Lines like “Thank you for showing me how not to grow up to be / miserable and angry and hateful and spiteful and scotch-drunk” present the facts of a very real struggle without a hint of complaint or embellishment. 

Yet through all the pain that abounds in this album’s words, wielding sentiments often nearing suicidal, there is no question of giving up or succumbing to the darkness. Parkinglot takes their suffering and adheres it to catchy, gritty, fun-as-hell punk music, defying their despair and turning it into a celebration of life. 

At Least I’m Trying is easily one of the saddest records I’ve ever heard, but Parkinglot does not let that sadness define them. There is hope and fervor and a small but ever-growing sense of self-worth embedded in every crash cymbal or overdriven bassline. Each song bursts like a light in darkness, growing brighter and revealing more with each flash. Parkinglot proves with At Least I’m Trying that there is a future beyond struggle, and for these three musicians, it’s a goddamn bright one. 

My top track: “Vegetables”

You can find more from Parkinglot, including upcoming live shows and news, on Facebook. Then grab your own copy of At Least I’m Trying on their Bandcamp page, out via Destroy All Music.

Kidnapped - Crunch CS

While I am an unabashed fan of sappy music like the Smashing Pumpkins or American Football, more often than not I need to spin something far more vicious, and for me, CT’s Kidnapped has mastered the distillation of brutality in their sound. Their music is built on a singular rage, the tones of a psyche snapping, and of the three releases they dropped in 2017, Crunch CS presents the best capture of Kidnapped’s unbridled fury.

Clocking in at just over six minutes, Crunch CS barrels headfirst into your ears with reckless and unrelenting energy. Not a single track breaks sixty seconds, yet Kidnapped still manages to cram tempo and dynamic changes into each piece. There is no time wasted on sentiment, nor a moment spared to catch a breath or tune a string—the band smashes song against song against song without apology, pumping their virulent music into your head until your brain is seeping from your ears.

Crunch CS sports an energy that is painfully immediate, capturing Kidnapped's live ferocity without sacrificing either decibel or definition. The drums deliver adrenaline-fueled blast beats at blistering tempos against a bass that groans like a skyscraper about to collapse. The guitars are massive and mangled with distortion, cabs retching feedback between songs and intermingling with snippets of fuzzed radio or sampled dialogue to construct a compound of insanity.



Atop this maelstrom of noise, they lay roaring vocals drenched in desperation and fury. The energy pent up in the instruments finds a voice in the lyrics, bursting from lines like "Cut me open / Rip it out / Make sure I scream / Fucking loud." Each shout smashes against the background of the instrumentation, as if fighting for its own space against the walls of noise and feedback.

When it comes to powerviolence, you will be hard pressed to find a band that hits harder than Kidnapped, and Crunch CS provides the perfect dose of their sound to get you hooked. Kidnapped cuts the bullshit out entirely, cramming viscosity and volume into each song, ripping through their riffs before careening to a quick and catastrophic end. So don't waste time and sleep on this record, because Kidnapped's trajectory is only upward, and they sure as hell aren't gonna wait for you to come around.

My top track: Scibelli Mondays

You can find more from Kidnapped, including upcoming live shows and news, on Facebook. Then grab your own copy of Crunch CS at their Bandcamp page.

Goldfinger - The Knife

If you know me at all, you know that my first and only favorite band has always been the legendary Goldfinger. Their viciously passionate tunes are the primary reason I picked up my bass guitar or began compiling an arsenal of records. They’re a massive influence on my own art, and the gateway that got me into punk, ska, hardcore, metal—all of it. 

But when they dropped The Knife this summer, their first record in nearly a decade, something held me back from running to the record store and grabbing a copy. Some trepidation, perhaps at their long hiatus or the apparent lineup upheaval, had me making excuses as to why I hadn’t heard a single song, let alone bought a copy. It was a full two months before curiosity got the best of me and I checked it out.

And as I should have known, Goldfinger always comes through for me.

The Knife is certainly not your standard Goldfinger record, but neither is it any less Goldfinger than I had hoped for. There are amazing dynamics across both the sound and the composition; the record opens with a punk ripper “A Million Miles,” followed by a too-danceable-for-its-own-good ska anthem “Get What I Need.” Goldfinger flaunts dynamics in the individual compositions as well, using quiet verses to amp heady choruses, juxtaposing grinding slash beats with insanely catchy pop hooks. The Knife ranges far in both genre and intensity, so that no matter what your stylistic preferences are, Goldfinger delivers hard.  

 

If I’m being honest, one of the biggest worries my heart housed when this record was released had to do with the lineup changes. My heart holds endless room for the first two incarnations of Goldfinger, so when I heard that John was the only returning member for The Knife, I felt a little disheartened. To then learn that both Charlie Paulson and Darrin Pfeiffer had since cut off contact with John, and that Kelly Lemieux had left to play bass in Buckcherry of all acts, only served to deepen my depression about the whole affair. While I’ve always loved John Feldmann’s infectious songwriting and sincere energy, it was the band Goldfinger that I loved, not the name, and to think that it had become “the John show” left me feeling less than excited for the release of The Knife.

That said, when I finally gave it a shot, I was surprised to find that the new lineup carries this comprehensive and powerful collection of songs with ardor. Philip Sneed handles his guitar with skill and grace, his leads melding seamlessly with the rhythmic thrashing that John and bassist Mike Herrera set down. The drums are manned almost exclusively by none other than the pop-punk legend Travis Barker, though Twenty One Pilots’ Josh Dun also makes an appearance on “Orthodontist Girl.” In addition, The Knife is loaded with spots by guest musicians, many of whom apparently collaborated on writing, bringing fresh minds and voices to Goldfinger’s music.  

 

Goldfinger can do virtually no wrong in my eyes, yet my one point of umbrage with them (or with John Feldmann) has always been the lyrics. As John puts it, most of his songs come in “explosive ideas” that are completed “in a half hour,” and rarely do those songs see a revision process. If he’s not singing strung-together clichés and idioms (such as “I took a stand, I made a choice / To take the road less traveled” in “Beacon”), often his lines somehow just barely manage to make grammatical sense (“Hold the knife / Away from me” in “Put the Knife Away”).

Still, it is important to note that many of the songs that appear on The Knife were not initially Goldfinger songs; John has stated that “I had a bunch of songs stockpiled that I thought were great, but which other artists didn’t think were appropriate for them.” Thus, John took tunes that might have been meant initially for more pop-driven or popular acts, and spun them into the honest, free, and oft-goofy pieces that have always defined Goldfinger’s catalog.

Despite John’s lackadaisical creation process, there is still a whole lot of substance to the songs that make up The Knife. John spends much of the record writing about his past from the perspective of the present, reminiscing on times good and bad and analyzing his relationships with family and friends. “Who’s Laughing Now” was apparently written about a “business relationship that went sour,” one that John “loved and cherished,” while “Tijuana Sunrise” describes his dangerous and debauched youth after his parents had “tossed [him] aside.” Similarly, “Get What I Need” wanders through the positive memories of John’s punk-rock youth, while the re-recorded “Am I Deaf” looks back on those same instances from the perspective of a 40-something family man trying to reconnect with his youth. 

Though some substance may still be lacking, overall this record is insanely tasty, and I know without doubt this CD won’t be leaving my car’s rotation for a long time. The Knife gathers the iterations of Goldfinger’s past and brings them into a crisp and catchy present tense. John Feldmann knows that, despite the various changes that age and experience have brought, Goldfinger is still a huge part of his life, one that he’s “not ready to let go of yet.” And so I will not let go either, but instead revel in Goldfinger’s continued vitality and evolution in the same way a fourteen-year-old me did: with wide eyes and anxious ears.

Tunes to Check Out:

1) Get What I Need

2) Tijuana Sunrise

3) A Million Miles