Made In America - BIG UPS, "Eighteen Hours Of Static" (2014)

New York band Big Ups have been building up to their full-length debut Eighteen Hours Of Static, out on Tough Love/Dead Labor Records, over the past few years now. The heavy handedness of this album evokes the post-punk and hardcore era of bands like Fugazi and Black Flag and maybe some later-years Minor Threat. It certainly brings me back to those salad days. Lead singer Joe Galarraga skillfully switches between melodic singing and full out rant mode, the "loud-quiet-loud" modus operandi of the aforementioned bands, but the influences don't seem as direct as it is me automatically looking for bands to compare them to.

Filling out the Big Ups lineup are Carlos Salguero (bass) and Brendan Finn (drums). Together Big Ups toe the line of being fast and mathematically precise but at times can go into slash and burn mode to where it feels like they are an explosion waiting to happen. I mean this in the best way possible.