Despite their wall of noise, Trash Talk work best in miniature. The Sacramento quartet (and OFF! tourmates) wield such an in-your-personal-space presence and messy, spastic forward push that it can be hard, as a viewer or listener, to give them back the energy they deserve. When watching their shows-- during which they often repurpose bottles, mic stands, and garbage cans as projectiles-- it's thrilling when they unplug, and you're still locked in and protecting your head. The group's 10-song, 17-minute 2010 third album, Eyes & Nines, was good; their new, five-song, nine-minute Awake EP is great. Not all of this has to do with leaving-you-wanting-more brevity: The band, led by playfully (but effectively) violent, wall-climbing vocalist Lee Spielman, are finding more ways to cram hooks and distinctive details into what, in the past, followed a more specific punk template. Here, the guys nail a sort of thrashing pop to the spastic hardcore without loosening the grip around your throat.
See, for instance, the opening title track: Starting with solo drumming and then some guitar feedback and double vocal shouts-- Spielman's spastic upper register mixed with a deeper grunt-- "Awake" turns into something colossal in under two minutes. The pulse is rollicking, weirdly unhurried (no vocals until 23 seconds in), the whole thing packed tight. And, as usual, the lyrics feel like a call to arms. We get the scene-setting introductory line, "In the land of nod, he who sleeps with both eyes open is god," but it's the chorus-- "Reflected in conniption fits/ I'm jaundiced, gaunted, sick sick sick/ Awake"-- that establishes a more interesting tone.
It's a kind of vintage Maximumrocknroll vibe, with sentiments you might glean from Crimethinc. From the thorny inverted peace symbol on the cover, the disenfranchised lyrical sentiment (see the the smash-shit-up "Awake" video), Trash Talk continue to dig into the sort of anger that inspired the recent Occupy Wall Street protests. Though it taps into feelings that have always been there, it feels especially important and of this moment. In the 58-second track "Slander" we get: "Line up and call me names/ Come spit in my face/ It doesn't matter/ I'm in a better place." In the fantastic closer "Gimme Death", we're given a protagonist making the most of destitution: "Facedown in the gutter/ I've got my ear to the street." In the breakdown-heavy "Blind Evolution", we're told, "I've got a problem with no solution/ The solution's out of reach," and, "Your revolution's already lost." Even on this short burst of an EP, Trash Talk are working on a more expansive level.
For instance, the last lines of the record-- "Gimme death"-- resonate as more than a standard punk toss-off after a close listen to fourth track "Burn Alive". In two minutes of the latter, there's a Ramones nod ("When I grow up I wanna be sedated"), revolutionary imagery ("Plant the seed and the fury spreads like legs/ Without a light at the end of the tunnel unless they set the whole mountain ablaze"), and this: "A blind man told me it's better to burn out than to fade away/ I said 'You're missing the point… yeah, the good die young/ But the great survive to burn alive/ The good die young, so burn alive.'" Trash Talk have been drawing that sort of line in the sand for years-- it's the sort of thing lifers do. Still, in 2011 it's satisfying seeing a higher-profile punk band carrying a torch like this, and unafraid to use it as a weapon.
