Virgins - Miscarriage

This group of Virgins is from Florida and is punk. As their Myspace points out, they are still not the crappy disco band from NYC. That's very much a good thing, although I do miss the opportunity to really lambast a truly shitty band.

My personal issues aside, these particular Virgins rose from the ashes of New Mexican Disaster Squad, a band I very much wanted to like but was always pretty bored by. While I never met them firsthand, they were always held to be solid dudes. NMDS has splintered into a number of projects as of late, this band features Sam from NMDS singing and playing guitar in the time-honored power trio format. That's the ideal paradigm from where I'm sitting: Shellac, Husker, Jawbreaker. Virgins don't resemble the aforementioned trios, save for maybe a little bit of Jawbreaker, but they bring some pretty fierce punk rock and roll to the table with Miscarriage.

There are a couple tempo nods early in the record to the rampaging tempos of NMDS, but most of the Virgins songs are pretty reminiscent of early Replacements, at last musically. Don't run too far with that. Sam doesn't have the lyrical or vocal depth of even early Westerberg, but Virgins still manage to make a pretty decent racket over the ten tracks here. I'd put them up there with The Tim Version at their best parts. Props are deserved. Virgins keep it interesting for the duration of Miscarriage They are good with a tempo change, especially on songs like Atheist In America where they start off Red Light Run It, then break it down all Mr. Whirly. Good times!

Miscarriage was recorded with Chris Owens from Lords at his Louisville studio. It's a good match, Owens is no stranger to working with rampaging bands like Akimbo, but he's equally as adept capturing hookier fare while still lending a DIY grittiness to the proceedings. If songs like Guitarmageddon (I know) and Wwzd were cleaned up Blink 182 style, they would be much lesser for it. Virgins would be great to see at a house show or a small bar. After having played this a dozen or so times, I'm really regretting not seeing them play with Monikers at Silent Barn earlier this year. I shan't make that mistake again.

See that you don't either. Keep up with the gents at their FL digs here. I don't see any tour dates soon, but hopefully we'll see them come through in the coming months. You can buy Miscarriage for that special someone from the stand-up kids at Kiss Of Death for $8 US here. Tell 'em JS-NYC sent you.

R