Rivethead - Cheap Wine Of Youth

Hey, do you guys (not gender specific) remember when "industrial metal" sounded like a cool idea? I actually don't, which is funny, because I was into some really shitty music that occupied the same microcosm in my proto-high school years. Fortunately nu-metal only sounded good as a 14 year old who had exposure to approximately nothing but shitty 70's rock and radio bullshit, so I don't feel much shame in admitting that - especially since I was over dung like Korn and Slipknot by the following year. Why am I writing this as an intro to Rivethead? Well, no good reason, just the fact that there's apparently an industrial metal band with the same moniker sharing a page on last.fm. For a few golden minutes, I thought the not-terrible Rivethead was touring again, but it turns out tattooed dorks with goatees and Ministry-fixations are still writing and performing tuneage for 13 year old angst buckets.

Rivethead’s a band I only got into through exposure to the member’s current/recent projects, and if you look at the list (Banner Pilot, Off With Their Heads, Dear Landlord, The Gateway District, etc), you'll instantly understand why giving this a spin was unavoidable. Cheap Wine Of Youth is their 2003 final statement, unfortunately, and the too-short follow-up to the similarly great 2001 EP, City Sound Number 5. Rumor has it the band actually concluded with a split with a band called Caulfield I've never heard, but it never saw the light of day.
Rivethead were a great, somewhat short-lived unit from Minneapolis, MN that played one of my favorite stylistic variations on pop-punk - Drunkscreechingweaselwithbeardscore. You know the kind; high-paced, sorta simple, super catchy songs with raspy, gruff vocals and tons of interplay/harmonies, and heavy, crunchy guitars that still retain that sweetness we all love as bubblegum chewing, Chuck Taylor brandishing youths. As I noted, this band's sound is definitely indebted to Ben "Complete Piece Of Shit" Weasel's classic-era Screeching Weasel, especially in regards to the clever use of multiple vocalists, but fortunately there's no "wuh-oh"s or early 90's girl-crazy, quasi-misogynistic lyrical cheese to be had.
Cheap Wine Of Youth is 9 classic tracks of 20-something angst, idealism, anger, and just enough sentimental imagery in the lyrics to make me wanna just get drunk and break into abandoned buildings. I guess this is more of a 12“ EP than a full length LP, but hey, if we can consider Gridlink’s Amber Gray a full length, then pretty much anything passes - the point is, despite the short running time (just over 20 minutes), this is a totally fulfilling listen, with awesome, fist-pumping songs like “48 Double Stack”, “Past Days”, “Traffic Street”, and “In My Heart A Warehouse Burns For You”, the very former-most of which is among my favorite songs in the pop-punk galaxy. Most importantly, the very latter contains the line "I love you just as much as I hate the man". Punk rawk.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1qmzfdz4tzm

If you dig these guys sound as much as I do, the next best thing you can do is pick up some Dear Landlord. I wouldn't say I like it quite as much as Rivethead, but it's stylistically the closest of the preceding projects, and just generally kicks the veritable ass. And hey, if you already dismissed the band's full length, Dream Homes, following the insurmountable fortress of hype built around it prior to it's release, give it another shot with expectations only for a solid, straightforward and catchy-as-shit pop punk album and you should enjoy it.