Name: Nights In The Dark
Brand: California X

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

LP-DG-076

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

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Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2015-01-13

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Redeye

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

634457674615

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1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

California X

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Don Giovanni Records

In less than a year, Amherst trio California X have emerged from basements and punk practice spaces of Massachusetts as one of the tightest new garage punk bands in the Northeast, teetering between various pockets of the punk spectrum — drawing influence from the worlds of noisy 80s Western Mass rock, fuzzy 90s garage pop, and classic post-hardcore SST sounds. Fronted by main songwriter Lemmy Gurtowsky, their debut LP for Don Giovanni follows one prior release, a double A-side single "Sucker" b/w "Mummy" out via the UK's Sound of Sweet Nothing label. From start to finish, the record's eight hook-heavy tracks of melodic guitar punk could all be singles: the noisy vox and huge grungy riffs on "Curse of the Nightmare"; the slower-burning head-banging pulse of "Pond Rot"; the shoegaze-inflicted fleshed-out melodies of "Lemmy's World". Songs like "Hot Hed" feels so essential you'll wonder how they're not actually from some long-lost punk tapes of the 1980s Western Mass. Appropriately, the band recorded the album in MA with Justin Pizzoferrato, previously a collaborator with Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr - and though California X sound like they could have been contemporaries with those bands, they're also carving out their own space in a lineage of their hometown's punk history. ""I want a pond to rot in" isn't exactly a call to arms, but as the refrain from California X's first single off their upcoming self-titled debut, it's tough to think of anything that more accurately describes their goals of self-actualization. If "grunge" or "swamp-rock" wasn't already part of the public lexicon, they're amongst the first two descriptors you'd levy on "Pond Rot." The riffs are thick and slow, yet maintain a surprisingly viscous sense of melody that isn't obscured by the heavy fuzz, while the vocals sag like they're wrapped in worn flannel. Here, the Amherst, MA trio are forthrightly acknowledging a debt to hometown heroes Dinosaur Jr., embracing the primordial pop sense of their earliest work while picking up at the point where they finally got some decent production."

Nights In The Dark

Music US