Summer of Blood - 'Strange Island'
Ferocious noise from the US of A.
‘Strange Island’ is the latest single from Arizona/NYC band Summer of Blood. It follows the equally gnarly ‘Rotten Fruit’. Whilst their first release favoured standard raw punk rock, ‘Strange Island’ takes on a noise element you might compare to Girl Band. You can hear this from the off in the weird intro – it sounds like a dissonant siren on a loop, with its only intention to melt faces.
The vocals growl in the verse, but that’s as far as the Girl Band comparison goes. Summer of Blood go for the standard song structure as the big chorus comes in with classic pissed off punk lyrics and hooks such as “The only way to stay sane is to lose your mind/…/We’re already dead … just left behind”. Here, you can hear a bit of ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ by Mudhoney.
If this doesn’t make your blood boil and head bang against the wall, nothing will. This is so good for classic kind of loud noise, pedal to the metal kind of guitar music.
Words of Matthew Brocklehurst