Music News - Auckland's Trust Punks Sign To SPUNK Records, Announce Album Release!
19 September 2014 - 0 Comments
DISCIPLINE RELEASED IN NZ AND AUS ON NOVEMBER 14TH.
Unlike many ostensibly "punk" bands, Trust Punks are done with attempts to glamourise the advantages that most guitar-toting white boys are born into. The result of this decision is Discipline, a literate and engaging set of songs informed as much by Foucauldian social theory as it is by Fugazi.
Discipline is a record about the process of becoming a self-aware human being, realising that there are certain power relations embedded within our society that we are necessarily complicit in to varying degrees. Discipline could refer to the way those power relations are imposed on us from without, but it could also mean coming to terms with privileges we previously took for granted, which can involve regret/shame at our past actions, but also hopefully inspires us to think critically about how the world works and maybe try change what is wrong with it and ourselves.
While from afar, it may appear that Trust Punks are merely the latest weird punk/pop band to emerge out of the storied history of innovators that their home of New Zealand is traditionally known for, the band themselves urge that their work is contextualised more contemporaneously. Although, as they have explained, this is more difficult for several reasons. According to them: "The AK scene is weird in the sense that there is quite a number of really great artists around, but everyone is quite atomised and there is almost zero infrastructure to support them. The most interesting people are the ones who just churn out self-released material mostly for free onto the internet with little to no fanfare and they are all more or less stylistically isolated from one another. Examples of this include: Perfect Hair Forever, Cheats and Girls Pissing. So in a sense there is no real 'Auckland Scene' to speak of, even though there is some really great music being produced in our city. I think with our music we sort of try to split the difference between the hookier/poppier aspects of punk like P.H.F and Cheats with more abrasive and noisy stuff like GPOGP or a hard-core band like Parents."
Trust Punks certainly have a rawness, a harder edge to them and could easily be compared to some of the previously mentioned bands. But where the hard-core scene may oppose pop, Trust Punks embrace it at times. Some international contemporaries that might draw a better comparison are: Iceage, Total Control, Naomi Punk, Chad VanGaalen, Viet Cong, Deerhunter, and Liars.
The band's seven track debut follows a series of free singles, self-released to their bandcamp. The only track from that early material which made the cut for the album ,’Prone Hold’, is a masters touch in skewered pop. The others are all from a series of new recordings, which apparently emerged despite a more-than-healthy dose of self-doubt that the band themselves seem less than comfortable elaborating on.
Even so, Trust Punks have succeeded in creating a 27 minute album that is short and sharp. At some points it is guided by pop (Choker's Era), other times fury (Thicket). While there is more of a sheen to the recording than their earlier releases, it also comes with more purpose, more aggression and more beauty.
The band perform at Homies Cosy Teahouse on October 18th in Wellington, and 10 South Street on October 25th in Auckland prior to the album’s release on November 6. A larger New Zealand tour and the band's second tour of Australia will occur over the summer months.
LISTEN TO PRONE HOLD HERE
TRUST PUNKS – DISCIPLINE. OUT NOVEMBER 14TH.
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