Wednesday, October 23, 10 p.m.
Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
NightFreak and ROAD SODA form a nice garage rock/punk two-fer bill at Rozz-Tox on October 23.
With the advent of Bandcamp and other instant-upload music services, the fine art of the demo tape has been in decline in recent years. Why bill something as a “demo” when you could just present it straight up as a full release in final form and get it straight into the ears of your listeners? In the era of streaming overload, who exactly is a band "demo-ing" something to, if not the world as a whole? What was once the time-honored tradition of hardcore and punk bands, seen as a calling card to be reviewed by zines or tossed around at shows, might seem superfluous when people demand the instant gratification of (almost) every album ever made being readily available at their fingertips.
Chicago-based “feral punk and roll” trio NightFreak hearkens back to that halcyon punk heyday with a concise two-song release titled Coupla Two Tree Songs (demo 2019), a burst of fist-in-the-air punk energy that they’re selling, presumably as a joke, for a hefty $1,000 price tag on Bandcamp (and that’s for the digital files, no less). The two songs pack plenty of punch. Both clock in around three minutes and manage to wind their way through a substantial buffet of chunky, distortion-fried riffs and bellowed choruses. Despite their proud punk pedigree, the fiery guitar lines bring the don’t-call-it-hair-metal shredding of Thin Lizzy to mind, as much as Greg Ginn’s noisy squeal with Black Flag.
Carried by the guitar and vocal work of a man billed as Steve NightFreak, the band doesn’t shy away from more pyrotechnic instrumental performances that take things one or two steps past “Keep it simple, stupid.” This guitar work couples with the frontman’s throat-shredding howls, featuring niceties like “Hey! F--- you!!!” on the first track titled “Surprise!”, to create some sublimely aggressive punk anthems. The band also benefits from its embrace of d-beat hardcore and straight-up heavy metal, sounding at times like such punk-and-then-some metal outfits as Torche or such obvious forebears as Motörhead. Second track “The Holler” dives into the aforementioned Thin Lizzy influence with its snaky, fretboard-spanning guitar lines and quick hammer-on phrases. If this is what NightFreak has to offer in the context of a live set or an eventual full length release, then it bodes well for fans of primal punk rawwwwk (with four w’s).
Then we have Davenport’s own ROAD SODA, capitalized as such for maximum punk-ass emphasis. Keywords on the ensemble's Bandcamp page include both “punk” and “drunk,” and associated artwork shows the band smoking weed and guzzling beers in cartoon form as they cruise down the street in a big ol' Chevy van. The group's most recent album, 2018’s WW3, crams 14 songs into the space of a half hour or so, blasting us with explosions of hardcore energy in the post-Minor Threat schools of brevity and pure attitude. The band knows how to avoid wearing out its welcome, as each track slams through the wall and airs out a few verses and choruses before moving on to the next one. The profanity-laced songs carry plenty of pure ire and nihilism, with the main lyrical themes revolving around not giving a shit and getting wasted, for the most part. But the overall angle is one of fun, not brutality. Clearly these guys have a sense of humor, and are poking fun at punk traditions as much as honoring them.
When the band dials down the intensity a little bit on tracks such as “Sinkpisser,” the musicians achieve a twitchy energy closer to classic Minutemen than their more aggro contemporaries, even if only for a moment. When the bar is set at “drunk punk,” any semblance of nuance in the jams goes a long way. Tracks such as the penultimate “In Defense of Ronnie Van Zant” seem like downright prog in comparison at its almost three-minute run time. The song’s chorus proclaims matter-of-factly “You don’t talk shit about Ronnie Van Zant,” perhaps offering one more salvo in the decades old (and heavily exaggerated) feud between RVZ and Neil Young. Given more time to stretch out, ROAD SODA shows that they can make songs with welcome shifts in energy and dynamics, more than just a bludgeoning blow across the face.
NightFreak and ROAD SODA play the Rock Island venue on October 23, admission to the 8 p.m. concert is a $5-10 sliding scale, and more information is available by calling (309)200-0978 or visiting RozzTox.com.
