#refresh records

You love to see a new artist have a pretty good year, and then do a deserved victory lap, and that’s what Gnawing are doing with “Germs Burn”, a new one-off single fresh off their newly minted status as one the year’s best breakthrough artists with a recommended debut full-length You Freak Me Out to bat. Their contributions to reshaping feedback noted in these pages’ accolades remain in the loop, but the listen already gets you excited for what comes next from the trio as those country roads winding out of Richmond’s indie rock jam hits the fast lane into a punk velocity that recalls a more thrashing version of an early Gun Outfit track. Toss Suzie True’s Lexi McCoy and her wavering vocals into the ramshackle fracas behind John Russell’s untuned groans, and this one burns hard. “Push your cigarette into my arm, we're both too scared to leave a mark,” Russell sings. Listen to it below...

Germs Burn by gnawing

Gnawing are the weird ones in the current underground rock scene who want to make you feel something beyond what’s there when you listen to them. From the backends of Richmond, the trio of vocalist and guitarist John Russell, drummer Christian Monroe and bassist Chris Matz are assured in their influences of ‘90s alternative jam makers like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement, but out in their true nature, there’s a freedom to be had in letting go of their gods at the same time and throwing their intuition into their wild spirit.

This all leads to You Freak Me Out, their debut full-length which is one of the year’s most welcome clashes of guitar rock that does its best to stray off beaten paths without entirely losing the map. Attribute this to the off-kilter angles of the band’s rocking. Tracks like “So Glad” and “Summer Heat” may shuck to a familiar electricity akin to guitar heroes J Mascis or Thurston Moore, but there’s something also wickedly rustic and spacey respectively in how Russell delivers personal inquiries deep inside the weeds with a titled head and wide eye that give their sound its own off-center. Even direct hits like the album’s title track and “Swimming Pool” blur speed, voltage and feedback without any guardrails i place to make the crash of human messes sound like a euphoria destination.

Gnawing’s Bandcamp page would rather you describe them as “a loud rock and roll band that wishes they were a country band,” and in the albums more even-tempered spots, you hear how that beguiling polarity creates the album’s more awe-striking bends of indie rock traditionalism. In the hard times worn in Russell’s voice on “Crenshaw Ave.’, twang vies with a monumental solo to measure the disparity between the struggle and the Man, while “Blue Moon New” situates a back porch beers-and-tears song at the pace of a punk breakdown without letting losing its soft, burly shoulders to lean on or its thorny edge to prickle you back.

Though this soon turns to a cacophony of hardcore energy and experimental dispatches on the closer “Worst Person I Know”, it’s only fitting that You Freak Me Out leaves you wondering what the fuck just happened, in a good way.

You Freak Me Out by gnawing

On “You Freak Me Out”, the title track and final preview off Gnawing’s upcoming debut album, there comes the revelation that an alternate title to the whole thing could have easily been Weirdo Trippers. If previous listens like the country-fuzz fucked lead single “So Glad” or the far out twang of “Blue Moon New” had you thinking the Richmond trio were the backwoods answer to Dinosaur Jr., this one shows off a different side to their rustic rock wilderness that might make you wonder what might happen if No Age took one too many edibles, got lost in the trees, and let the voltage fly off the hook to find their way back.

Luckily for us, vocalist and guitarist John Russell, drummer Christian Monroe and bassist Chris Matz’ creative compass comes in handy, too, as they compact short chord progressions, verse, and chorus structure into a supercharged blitz. “And when it all comes down / I know where I’ll be, / And when it all comes down / I’ll be around you’ll see,” Russell’s paranoia unravels, though it’s their own wonderfully uninhibited weirdness that is really seen..

Gnawing’s You Freak Me Out will be released July 9th on Refresh Records.

The Bandcamp copy on Gnawing’s page describes them as “a loud rock and roll band that wishes they were a country band.” I like that much better than the countless Dinosaur Jr. takes I’ve read out there in reference to “So Glad”, the lead single from their forthcoming debut album You Freak Me Out. To be fair, though, that album title makes it easy to draw in the “freak scene” comparisons, and the Richmond trio doesn’t shy away from their fandom of Dino Jr. alongside the Lemonheads and Pavement as seminal influences in shaping their sound. Vocalist and guitarist John Russell, drummer Christian Monroe and bassist Chris Matz push off hard with a crash course punk energy from the listen’s start to give themselves some distance, however. Add in a tip of straw in the jaw and jugging percussion in its roots along the way, it does have a way of finding Gnawing deeper in backroads with where their rock rumbles.

In its accompanying video, they dress close to the part, as they're full-bodied beekepers trying to stay atop of their own buzz. Be "Glad" you heard Gnawing below...