Piss Shit Fuck

Piss Shit Fuck is the most attention-whoring name I’ve ever heard. Fortunately, that’s where the bulk of criticism ends for this eight-year-old squatter punk / crustified crackrocksteady combo.

Use Your Delusion doesn’t so much project out of the speakers as it does sonically assault the listener with a lethal assembly of blazing guitars, shrieking vocals, schizophrenic rhythms and sludgy doom interludes all harnessed under crusty, basement-quality production.

Like most bands somehow tied to the extended Choking Victim family tree, PSF uses their lyrical content to drive home a no-holds-barred and uncompromisingly pessimistic outlook on the state of the world, government, society, and humankind. Warranted and timely as it is, there are times when the unrestrained fury may be a touch saturated in rebellious truisms like in the opener “Hooray for Fighters of a Good Fight“: "I don’t fucking wanna and you can’t fucking make me / ’Cause I’m not ever gonna fucking get in line / Fuck you for fucking thinking about fucking trying / And fuck everyone who fucking left me behind / Fuck you." Whether earnest angst or attempted tongue-in-cheek, PSF demonstrates a far more developed angle by the time the album ends with “Fortified Whine”: "If you live in North Carolina or South Dakota or Oklahoma / Then you already know the fucking truth / About the ballots by corporations, for exploitation of innocent, ignorant, brainwashed citizens / […] / So if you’re growing and changing, then I’m with you / Any way’s alright with me / I’ll take revolution / I’ll take reform…anything but this."

“Melt and Die” stands out as the one track on Use Your Delusion to incorporate the furious ska rhythms of crackrocksteady brethren like InDK and Leftover Crack, while singer Mike PSF goes back and forth between spitfire scat and throat-shredding screams that would make Stza Crack proud. “Hate the Way” reveals the band’s willingness to incorporate shifty style changes as the song transitions from straight-ahead aggressive punk to almost a minute-and-a-half of stoner rock before tearing back into psychotically fast hardcore to end the track like slamming into a brick wall.

According to the liner notes, there is at least some level of saxophone playing on Use Your Delusion, but after a dozen or so listens, the grimy recording found locating such instrumentation impossible. “Had Enough” does feature some surprisingly technical guitar playing before dipping into a few measures of brooding, tom-tom jungle rock, while “Prelude of the Snake” boasts a more refined production that allows for searing, metal-influenced mini-riffs that rise and wane like a revving engine.

For the most part, Use Your Delusion is precisely what’s needed in punk rock. It’s angry, fast, loud, unpolished, open to experimentation, and true to its anti-corporate rhetoric (try finding Shit Piss Fuck on MySpace!). Whether the uncompromising approach is a pro or con is up to the listener, but there remains no doubt that you can’t fuck with Piss Shit Fuck.