Saturday, August 9, 2008

Monikers - Wake Up

It's always a good day when a package from the good folk of Southern Lovin' arrives. This time around it's the new records from The Serious Geniuses, Lagrecia and most pertinently for today: the Monikers. They are on Kiss Of Death and hail from the charming little village of Orlando in the Sunshine State. 

Despite their Southern roots, the Monikers play the East Bay influenced punk rock that makes guys like me do the happy dance all around my apartment. The sound, vocally and rockingly, is pretty heavily indebted to 'lost my voice, hope I didn't break it' era Jawbreaker with a(n) (Erik) Funk edge to it. The D4 influence pops up more than once or twice in the twenty-six minutes that is Wake Up, but you'd be hard pressed to complain. The thing fucking rocks. 

Monikers have garnered themselves a little bit of a buzz out the gate for having Ryan from Discount in the band. It's a relief to find that he's gone the way of Todd Rockhill and not morphed into a vampire of London like some other Discount bandmates we could mention. Obligatory snarky digressions aside, Monikers are harder and faster than Discount, but maybe even hookier.  They are definitely the kind of band you want to see at a house show with a beer in your hand.

Wake Up comes out on 9/9 on Kiss Of Death, but check out the KOD website here for the split with Banner Pilot to tide you over in the interim.  If for some bizarre reason you need reassurance, it's pretty great. Of course, anything with Banner Pilot is a good thing, but rest assured that both parties more than hold their own. Monikers will be in New Brunswick on September 30th with the Ergs, but there are suspicious holes in the schedule that lead me to believe they'll be tearing up the greater Metropolitan area, too.  I'll keep you in the loop.

R


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