Basement Superheroes - Fake - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

2020 . In early 2016, D.C. punk legends Brian Baker (Minor Threat, Dag Nasty, Bad Religion) and Michael Hampton (S.O.A., Embrace, One Last Wish) met up at Hampton's Brooklyn home to play music together. Friends since first grade, the two guitarists ended up writing a handful of songs that day, then closed out the session with a spur-of-the-moment decision to start a band. When it came to finding a bassist, Baker and Hampton looked to Johnny Temple of Girls Against Boys and Soulside (another fellow student at their elementary school), who equally shared their passion for what Temple refers to as Inchloud, angry, visceral music.Inch By the end of the year, the band had enlisted Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzén as their singer, thus cementing the lineup to punk-rock supergroup Fake Names. Soon after dubbing themselves Fake Names-a moniker that's part Raising Arizona reference, part recognition of the Inchubiquitous and demonic use of the term 'fake news,'Inch according to Baker-the band headed to Renegade Studios with the goal of creating a demo to present to record labels. But after playing those recordings for Baker's Bad Religion bandmate Brett Gurewitz, the Epitaph founder made an unexpected proposal. InchBrett said to us, 'This isn't a demo, this is the album,'Inch Baker recalls. InchHe was pretty adamant about putting it out exactly as it was, so that's what we wound up doing.Inch Album Tracks 1. All for Sale 2. Driver 3. Being Them 4. Brick 5. Darkest Days 6. Heavy Feather 7. First Everlasting 8. This Is Nothing 9. Weight 10. Lost Cause

If credibility were currency, Fake Names' wealth would be off the charts. Composed of Brian Baker (Minor Threat, Bad Religion, Dag Nasty), Michael Hampton (S.O.A., Embrace), Dennis Lyxzén (Refused, INVSN, The [International] Noise Conspiracy), Johnny Temple (Girls Against Boys, Soulside) and the newest member Brendan Canty (Fugazi, Rites of Spring), the band is a veritable post-hardcore dream team.However instead of rehashing the past, Expendables is a reinvention that sees the band dialing back the distortion and leaning into the melodies. The result pairs their unparalleled pedigree with a pop sensibility that's slightly unexpected and wholly satisfying. InchFor our last record [2019's Fake Names] the general influences were 70's U.K. punk and power-pop; but it wound up with a little classic rock vibe as well, like the Vibrators meets Aerosmith. We never saw that coming!Inch, Baker explains. For Expendables the band enlisted producer Adam InchAtomInch Greenspan (IDLES, Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Baker explains, InchThe pop influences are a little more out front on this one and the production really helps it shine. It sounds more direct, more urgent.InchExpendables is the latest exchange in a musical conversation that spans four decades. Baker aptly refers to the lineup of Fake Names as a Inchmutual admiration societyInch and says that once the five members got in the same room together, it felt as if they had already been in the band together for years. Album Tracks 1. Targets 2. Expendables 3. Delete Myself 4. Go 5. Don't Blame Yourself 6. Can't Take It 7. Damage Done 8. Madtown 9. Caught in Between 10. Too Little Too Late

2015 from the most prolific artist in modern rock 'n' roll. Faulty Superheroes jets off Pollard's vinyl-grooved runway like the prototype for some new supersonic power pop fighter jet, and at this point in his career is anyone surprised that the 12 tracks on this effort are uniformly awesome? The answer is no. Exactly no one is surprised. The biggest thing with which Pollard has to contend is his own miraculously consistent greatness. That he rarely-if ever-stumbles is some kind of marvel, and perhaps implies superpowers of his own. Faulty Superheroes has a tossed-off, effortless magnificence for which the rash of indie-whatevers trailing in his wake from Bee Thousand to the present constantly strive, and fail to achieve. The constant sense of surprise, of wonder, of discovery that one routinely finds in superbly structured instant bomp classics like InchFaster the GreatInch is not something that can be taught, or learned, or imparted, or copied. Pollard largely abandoned the four-track 20 years ago and still gets tagged as Inchlo-fi,Inch which is a word that makes even less sense now in the days of digital recording than it did then in the days of occasionally tape-hiss smothered coulda-shoulda-been hits. Are there bum notes here and there? Recording-accidents-on-purpose left in like crushed empty beer cans strewn around the miniature, glimmering pop/rock/psych/prog construction sites left standing in the wake of each finished/unfinished songs? You betcha. The Guided By Voices aesthetic was formed and developed and continues to be improved by Pollard, which makes all the more puzzling the hand-wringing that accompanies every announcement of a so-called GBV Inchbreak-upInch (or for that matter, InchreunionInch). As long as we have Bob, we need nothing else. And we have Bob. If you're counting your blessings, don't forget that one. It's kinda crucial. Album Tracks