“Committeemen owe as much to post punk royalty like Gang of Four as they do contemporaries Osees and Parquet Courts,” we wrote of the Houston punk rockers back in March. “But, they’re no cheap copy, managing to recombine this range of influences into something wholly their own.” The band—that’s DJ Gilmore-Innis (vocals/guitar), Ken Dannelley (drums), Matt Kast (bass) and Graham Bell (guitar)—are set to release their (S)HITS EP very soon via Rue Defense, and lead single ‘Therapy’ gave the first taste of the caustic result. “Taking aim at the burgeoning ecosystem of quacks and narcissists which seems determined to tell us how to live,” we described, “this is blistering punk complete with yell-along chorus, treating this vapid, insidious cohort of podcasters, Youtubers and televangelists with the contempt they deserve.”
The rest of the EP is no less striking. Take the aphorism-filled ‘Old Rope’, a track which juxtaposes bullish energy with chronic doubt and lands on something like defiance, the sound loaded with the kind of bitter confidence of those who have longed accepted this world of ours to be rigged against the little man. ‘Chew’ takes things even further, a song of two halves which barrels forward at a hundred miles an hour before stretching out into a weighty instrumental. Again, the presiding emotion is that of exasperation, Gilmore-Innis a man at the end of his rope, pushed too far once too often, and now letting every ounce of gathered frustration pour out in one cathartic breath.
But more than an exercise in self-examination or personal release, Committeemen also use (S)HITS to excoriate the forces responsible for much of our contemporary pain. Taking aim at those who use religious ideology as an excuse for cruelty, final single ‘Control’ is the perfect example. A no holds barred assault on a government who would not only deny healthcare to those most in need, but have the audacity to claim such actions are somehow Christian. “Anything it takes for control,” as the chorus puts it, though you feel such people might not have accounted for the rage they have brought upon their heads.
(S)HITS EP is out now via Rue Defense and available from Bandcamp.
Photo by Clare Kemp