Once again, I have the distinct honor of bringing you a band from the great city of Boston, Massachusetts. And if you have any familiarity with the Boston scene – your Dunkin’ degenerates, your Fenway freaks, your Storrow sickos, if you will – you may recognize the members of Pretty Out from their involvement in other Beantown bands (Furnace, Late Nite Wars, Bedroom Eyes, Raw Blow, and Courage Cloak, to name a handful.)
Pretty Out formed a couple years ago, and they’ve just put out their new EP Misery Seed, four tracks of grungy emo niceness with grit like the walls of the Big Dig flowing like the Charles on a windy day. (I’m full of the similes today.) The band has their own delectable style, taking influences from the late ’90s and early ’00s, but twisting them musically to make something sounding modern. It’s the work of seasoned musicians from the scene using all of their expertise to form something fresh. For that reason, Misery Seed crackles like the fireworks that go off after the Sox win a ball game (which, as of recently, hasn’t happened much.)
Jake Letizia’s chugging bass leading into “Underside of Your Head” gives way to Eril Lipson’s headbanging guitars and Brian Donovan’s thundering drums, and Darryl Pohas’s raging vocals send up folks who’ve let fascism, brain rot, and bigotry burrow into their bodies and infest them with hate. “There’s a misery seed that’s been growing in me for years now,” Pohas sings, admitting the growing pain in his heart watching what’s happened to the world. These are guys who’ve worn their woes on their sleeve for the past two decades, letting their aches and anger out into their music with different bands in various basements all across Boston and other cities across America. That misery seed’s growing into a weed that won’t go away; it’s going to emerge from their chests like the alien from Alien, and the people letting hate take over won’t do anything to help. “A middle finger in an open wound,” Pohas sings: “It keeps getting worse. It might be too late.”
All four tracks on Misery Seed center around that theme of addressing the ugliness of the world to its face, letting the weed grow, bust out covered in blood, and attack. On “Pay No Mind”, the band launch a furious salvo of punk at an unnamed subject: “I’m sorry to see your life’s a joke / Too important to your god to see your son.” But given the song’s title and chorus, it’s clear the band can’t waste too much energy on this subject or anyone like them: “When it’s not really worth my time, I’ll never react ’cause I pay no mind.” While the band puts all of their anger into their music, they would rather focus on bettering themselves and the world around them. More on that later.
Pretty Out hearken back to the good old days of parenthetic subtitles in emo tracks with “Knife to a Flame (From Here I See The Decline)”. The tempo slows down to let Pohas’s voice sing of anxiety settling in: “If you’re feeling down, all alone and afraid / Knife to a flame; let your panic smooth your brain.” It’s a song for all the folks who duck into a crowded bar and hide in pints of booze to keep away the terrors of the world, the memories of haunting things from their past, and anything else that might send them into a doom spiral. It’s also for the folks who curl on their couch in a cloud of weed smoke watching eight-hour blocks of old Toonami shows while ignoring phone calls from their friends and family. The world right now tempts us to put our heads in the sand, to distract us from its horrors, to go about our days feeling helpless. Pretty Out doesn’t mess with that ideology. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to fight against it.
Perhaps “Liquid Zoo” best identifies the feeling of the world’s pressures turning the human spirit into a puddle of goo. It contains perhaps one of the finest lyrics I’ve heard put to music: “I swear if Heaven’s overflowed and Christ is bleeding wine, rot inside your core and sip from his holes.” Good Lord. It evokes the image of Sisyphus’s boulder rolling over him, flattening his rib cage into chalk dust. And yet, Sisyphus would still have to get up, chase the boulder down the mountain, and roll it to the summit again. Even a futility impossible to ignore leaves no excuse to stop what work must be done.
I’ve been hinting at Pretty Out’s zeal for activism throughout this review, since it appears quite often throughout their EP. So here’s a wonderful perk for you, if you should choose to purchase one of 100 limited-edition hand-numbered CD of Misery Seed from the band: All proceeds will go to LUCE – The Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts. The organization provides rapid response to mobilize community members to verify ICE activity in real time, as well as direct support to immigrant families in Massachusetts. The Commonwealth’s felt the brutal blow of authoritarianism in the past several months, and it takes the whole community to protect each other. The members of Pretty Out grew up here and want to symbolize the meaning of “Boston Strong”. Help them help the immigrant community here in Boston and get yourself a nice CD in the meantime.
(If you missed out on the perk, you should still donate to LUCE; the band and the staff of Start-Track will thank you.)
Despite the darkness it evokes in its sound and lyrics, Misery Seed marks a bright spot in Pretty Out’s oeuvre and a new chapter for its members’ involvement in the Boston scene. It’s local punk with a worldly eye and a noise that explodes, taking up space even when it sings of claustrophobia. Take a listen and perhaps the misery seed growing within your own heart might wither just a bit, leaving room for the music, hope, and community to take hold.
Written by Will Sisskind
