Bluetip

In the past couple of years, I have had trouble getting behind any of the new crop of D.C. bands. Very little of what I hear excites me, it just lacks the honesty of the areas past legends.

BLUETIP’s first album “Dischord No. 101,” while not being a new record, represents one of the last Dischord bands that, well, for lack of a better term, fucking throws down.

Fuck punk, BLUETIP is a rock band. There’s definitely a ‘D.C.’ feel to the record (whatever that means…). Comparisons to the ‘build and release’ intensity of JAWBOX (“Gainer”) and the full-on fury of SWIZ (“Nickelback”) have been made (Jason and Dave happen to have made up half of the latter band) and make perfect sense. Jason isn’t just singing, but almost crooning over his and Dave’s fucked up, off-time guitar riffing and Jake and Zac’s precise rhythmic poundings. The lyrics are like reading from the diary of some inebriated poet with a head full of mismatched metaphors. But they’re really fun to yell along with, even if you have no idea what he’s talking about. As not to bludgeon you over the head on every track, the tempo is slowed down to a faint, country drawl on “Sacred Heart of the Highway,” complete with steel guitar and harmonica. Then two minutes into it, they decide, that well, you probably want to be beaten unconscious, so they gladly oblige.

Their newest LP “Polymer,” came out last year and is well worthy of your time, as is “Join Us,” their second full length (all available threw Dischord).