The Men

The Men yes, “The,” are a four-piece post punk outfit from Brooklyn, NY. Their catalog, which began in 2008 with a hand-dubbed self-released demo cassette, has grown to include two LP’s?—?We Are the Men and Immaculada?—?two more tapes, and a 7-inch. They have toured three times, played over 75 shows and have grown a following of die hard fans crowding into living rooms and basements throughout the five boroughs, desperately trying to see them.

The buzz in their hometown has grown so fervent that the Village Voice debuted this album’s first single, “Bataille,” a full six months before the record was scheduled to street. Named for the famed French pornographic writer, the track review expounds, “rides a pug-ugly joy-punk riff into almost krautrock oblivion?—?complete with gorgeous voice cracks and face-mooshing distortion.”

Nick Chiericozzi, Mark Perro and Chris Hansell recorded this album at Python Patrol in 2010. Rich Samis joined the band shortly after and is now their full time drummer.

Having three songwriters in the band allows them to pull from innumerable post punk sources, referencing drone, metal, shoegaze, and even Spaceman 3 lyrics on Leave Home.

Recording to tape for the first time here, using elements of distortion, feedback, pop hooks, and a couple of beautifully destructive instrumental passages, The Men have been described by Mishka as, “more composers than musicians.”

They have breathed new life into the genre of hardcore and created a seminal album that is truly for punks of all ages. Look for them on tour this summer.

REVIEW FOR BBC…

Brooklyn four-piece stand at the edge of a breakthrough – now, do they stick or twist?

« Words By Alex Deller 2011-12-05 »

Let’s just get this out in the open from the get-go: The Men are weird, and The Men are not going to play music that will always necessarily please you.

The Brooklyn band’s latest album Leave Home, y’see, is a wonderful grab-bag of anomalous sounds that pilfers magpie-like from genre after genre as it charts its 41-minute course. Their most feted moment, Bataille, for instance, possesses a glacial sense of cool and cuts through the fug to be found elsewhere like cold autumn sunshine through a hangover, representing a back-handed slap to the face of every cut-rate indie twonk who’s ever had the gall to compare their band to The Stooges or The Velvet Underground. If you’re hoping the seven remaining tracks will be carbon copies of that then you’re in for a surprising ride, the rest of the album taking in everything from motorik krautrock meditations and hazy Spacemen 3isms to Sonic Youth-tinged garage rock and, in the tangled horror of L.A.D.O.C.H., a kind of whitehot noise-rock fury that recalls Billy Bao or the shapeless, undulating terror of Burmese.

If this latest hall-of-mirrors effort won’t settle the debate as to whether The Men pen brilliant albums or just brilliant songs that happen to be collected together it does, at least, represent their most refined effort to date. Their songwriting skills have been whittled and honed to a keen, glinting edge while the untamed squall of predecessor Immaculada has been channelled towards something far more purposeful, the flow of noise, feedback and crackling static seeming more controlled rather than gushing freely from every gaping orifice.

Demonstrating a joyous refusal to rein in their eclectic tastes or kowtow to what their audience might be expect, the band’s biggest challenge now might be in choosing where to go next, teetering, as they seem to be, on the brink of crossing over from the DIY scene that spawned them and into more popular parlance. Whether they successfully follow the likes of F* Up and Black Lips down this treacherous path is anyone’s guess, but with a new album already scheduled for March 2012 we won’t have too long to wait to see whether they plummet or soar. Whichever it is, the results are likely to be spectacular.