White Wives

Happeners

The side project that's not really a side project (according the band), White Wives boast a lineup of heavy-hitters, including Chris #2 and Chris Head from Anti-Flag, Tyler Kweeder of American Armada and Roger Harvey, who plays under the name Dandelion Snow. And while the quartet of buddies from Pittsburgh do their damnedest to assure the world that they are really and truly their own thing, knowing the lineage of the band goes a hell of a long way toward putting their raw, earnest sound into perspective.

The 11 songs on Happeners sound like a bunch of guys who are trying to establish themselves apart from their other bands; however, they can't escape the influences that got them to this point. Happeners cranks down a number of the tempos for maximum impact, but the slightly subdued fury can't hide the collective heart of punk lifers who know that the loudest voice wins out. They want you to chant and sing along with them. And having Harvey in the mix, someone whose solo work tends towards the acoustic and the emotionally wrenching, helps bring out the humanistic side of a bunch of guys who might otherwise stick to the same old political platitudes.

What really separates this band from both their “day jobs” and the rest of the pack is the thematic source material they are pulling from. The album was inspired by a Dutch counterculture movement that used non-violent protest and action to provoke violence from the police, and the Situationists, the revolutionaries inspired by Dadaism and Marxist theory. And as spelled out in their lyric sheet, White Wives drop a number of references and quotes from the works of Guy Debord and authors such as Jack Kerouac.

This is heady stuff, to be sure, but they also ascribe to the idea first spelled out in Feminist Theory that the “personal is political.” And so, all these political ideas and protests are wrapped up in intensely personal stories and proclamations about how music saved these boys from a life of middle-class mediocrity. I can only imagine that their hope with this record is that it will help do the same for a new generation of kids.

Adeline http://www.adelinerecords.net

“Another City For A New Weekend”