If you're into Pissed Jeans' music because you relate to it, well, Matt Korvette is sorry it's come to this. Call it Commiseration Rock: Over the past decade, the Philly-via-Allentown band has occupied a very specific niche, making violent, shout-along sludge punk about situations that find men at their wimpiest and most impotent. In Pissed Jeans' songs, men (typically Korvette himself) go bald, can no longer shop happily at Whole Foods, take solace in ice cream, are beleaguered at work, and baffled by women.
Those are very real concerns that nonetheless foster a dangerous perspective from which to create art: It's basically responsible for the rash of deplorable "manxiety" sitcoms, which take the defensive and view any deviance from a false ideal of "father knows best" society as a threat to God's natural order. Typically, you'd say there's a "delicate balance" to be struck with this kind of stuff. On Honeys, Pissed Jeans' fourth and best album, they wisely make no such distinction, trusting the power of honesty in Korvette's lyrics while dropping the musical defense mechanisms that kept listeners at a distance-- it's headbanging music that allows you to nod feverishly in agreement.
So, no more seven-minute dirges about car troubles, no spoken word odes to scrapbooking. That's not to say Pissed Jeans have gone soft on us. You'll get your fill of terror by the second track, as "Chain Worker" is three minutes of free-time, squalling feedback surrounding Korvette's screams about a tortured office drone drinking until he cries blood. Otherwise, it's 10 songs (and a brief interlude) that take after the delirious opener "Bathroom Laughter" in concision and purpose. Nearly everything could pass for "the single"-- edge-of-sanity tantrums that make for great singalongs because the chorus is either an exasperated yell or just the song title. Without sacrificing visceral force, Pissed Jeans allow themselves enough versatility to keep Honeys intense and interesting throughout, fashioning a loser's history of alt.rock that honors some of the most abrasive bands to get a deal post-Nevermind; the cruel swing of Jawbox ("You're Different (In Person)"), the Melvins' mammoth plod ("Male Gaze"), Nirvana themselves going very ape ("Vain in Costume"), and of course, plenty of the Jesus Lizard's warped machismo.
The spirit of the music alone positions them as top-flight AmRep revivalists, though the relatively clean production makes them sound a little less faithful than labelmates METZ. But this is a necessary decision, as Korvette is a frontman who is trying to communicate with the listener, not just be a part of the abrasive din. Honeys is the most concentrated and consistent display of what Korvette does best. He's reliably quotable largely because his deadpan literalism allows him to be funny without aspiring to cleverness, and lets the ridiculousness of his actions and those of others speak for themselves: a chemically processed, preservative-laden frozen meal calls itself "Healthy Choice," a stick figure family decal on a car proudly boasts one's humility, the friendly "ding" accompanying an incoming email reveals the death of a coworker, a lazy boyfriend who thinks his girl should appreciate the effort it takes for him to say "let's do it."
In the past, it was easy enough to applaud Pissed Jeans simply for being so overtly topical in a genre that rarely has much to say-- to think, "Oh, a doom metal song about getting a massage, good one." While it's clear what each song is specifically about on Honeys, whether that's online dating or cat allergies, they're all essentially dealing with the same thing in a larger sense; the guilt of recognizing the frivolity of your problems and the compounded guilt of recognizing how powerless you are over these stupid things.
"Cafeteria Food" is closest to the perfect Pissed Jeans song in terms of aligning those two threads. The hollowed-out thud of the kick drum and guitar mirrors how, on the wrong day, a walk down the hallway at work can feel like a death march. It contains the album's best one-liners; upon finding out a shithead project manager has died, Korvette feels "like I've won the Super Bowl," "like Jesus Christ, our savior," and in a line inspired by guitarist Brad Fry's viewing of Maury, "like I'm not the father." If it were just an *Office Space-*style revenge fantasy, I doubt it would hold up to many listens. There's something more devious at play; notice that Korvette doesn't screw his enemy's wife on his desk, he doesn't take a baseball bat to his fax machine, he doesn't tell him and his fantasy team to fuck off. This is a subtler, dark humor-- here's a guy whose hatred has rendered him so feeble, he's resorted to the futility of begging for divine intervention, resigned to the fact that he'll probably have to make small talk with the same guy in the lunchroom today, tomorrow, and the day after that: "Go ahead, you can use the microwave/ It's an excellent kitchen tool."
Honeys hits hard and it also stings as it fully explores how lives are driven by fear and the sad little power plays we make to clutch any bit of control. The last two songs are on seemingly different planes: On "Health Plan", Korvette refuses to take shit or (any helpful medical advice) from doctors, and later disappears into his DVD collection on "Teenage Adult". But they're both unflinching looks at how people frame their willingness to endanger their wellbeing as principles rather than serious denial. This is even more pronounced on the "relationship" songs; far from an Al Bundy homage, the laughs of "Romanticize Me" are uncomfortably triggered by the acknowledged, pathetic co-dependency where one person refuses to change, the other refuses to leave, and you sit at dinner with the couple wondering how they ever found each other attractive. "You're Different (In Person)" is similar in that it doesn't deconstruct social media so much as let it speak for its own devolutionary power; from the excitement of setting up that perfect profile to the realization that the internet allows shut-ins an even higher level of deceit, manipulation, and stunted emotions than "real life." When Korvette yells, "I thought this was meant to be fun!" he outlines the sad truth that most people aren't different in person.
The cartoonish brutality of the music is fun as hell, and since Korvette is most often mocking himself during Honeys, it doesn't come off as hectoring. This is extremely important on "Male Gaze". Most often, songs by men decrying misogyny try to speak on behalf of all men (or all women, really), and turn into condescension. It might help that "Male Gaze" takes the most caricatured, simian path musically, but Korvette simply acknowledges the unintended consequences of his actions ("It's when a smile becomes a stare/ And it starts to burn") and apologizes. He doesn't ask for or assume forgiveness, he doesn't place himself on a pedestal and he doesn't indict his entire gender so you might think more highly of him. Korvette artlessly mutters, "I know I'm no angel/ But I'm trying to kill it," admitting to progress in a way that's more powerful than feigning perfection.
Pissed Jeans can often be mistaken for a misanthropic band, especially since Hope for Men and King of Jeans came equipped with enough self-sabotage to keep their underdog status intact. But when I call it "Commiseration Rock", it's because Honeys focuses on dealing with other people to an extent that's extremely rare. Not "how to deal with people"-- Honeys is thankfully not a treatise, not a moral code, not a series of op-ed pieces trying to convert you to Korvette's point of view, and it acknowledges that the zero-sum games of "fuck the man" punk idealism don't work for most people who have real jobs and bills. It's just a kickass rock record that presents Korvette in a way most of us can relate to, a guy trying to blow off steam after another exhausting, barely successful attempt to not be an asshole one day at a time.
