This album is the reason I do reviews. To hear the sounds I love that I wouldn’t otherwise get to hear no matter how much discovery I did through services like Spotify, Amazon music, and Apple — all of which have extensive ‘algorithm searches’ to suggest music I will like but either suggest stuff I’ve already listened to dozens of times or something completely unrelated to music I like.

So when a record like Off Contact’s Pearls Before Swine is delivered straight to my e-mail seeking a review, the discovery process is reversed and flattering. Here’s a group who’s music I’d usually have to seek out extensively asking me to listen to and appreciate their latest record.

Years in the future when critics (unlike myself but rather those that work for magazines or publish their own books) discuss the third or fourth wave that redefined hardcore Off Contact will be seen as a ‘missing link’; much like This Heat were considered the missing link between prog rock and punk/hardcore (not that they actually were, but it was a fine description and a believable mythology).

Every time I listen to this album I feel like it’s approaching but never quite getting to the brutal harshness of a band like Chat Pile or Kowloon Walled City. The vocals have the same hopeless, spoken but never quite sung quality as harsher hardcore, but the subtlety and almost tuneful approach is more characteristic of groups like Unwound, Tar, and Unsane. Similarly the musicianship and writing is far more melodic and less minimalist than typical post hardcore. And like my fellow reviewers, I’d have to describe the sound over all as that of a post-punk group like Mission of Burma– I guess where my review differs is where I hear there’s definitely a yearning for something harsher and more desperate in every teased rise and crescendo.

Which is not to say that yearning quality isn’t enjoyable; quite the opposite. It’s frustrating in the way that my life is; never over indulging in the suicidal desperation that a big part of you may yearn for but instead always trying hard to ‘look on the bright side’ and find beauty in the “dead gray ashes” where according to Creston Spiers of Harvey Milk “there is grace”. I think when people talk about the despair of American working men this is pretty close to some kind of archetypal yet personal expression of it. Something’s calling for the all out nihilism that probably does describe our current era, yet we have to live through it, finding meaning and whatever small enjoyment there is if it’s even possible.

And now I’m talking more about the zeitgeist the Off Contact seems to have pinpointed as opposed to their actual music that you probably want to hear me describe. Right?

Sorry. This is what I do. If the record gives me an overwhelming sense, feeling, or series of thoughts, like Pearls Before Swine does, that’s what I’m going to tell you about in as much depth as I can (oh idiosyncratic me! oh disappointed you!). Of course Off Contact are the ones doing all the work, making the music that provokes these overwhelming feelings.

While the sentiments expressed feel very of the moment and contemporary, the overall language is eclectic; pulling from every era and genre in independent rock music of up to fifty years back. Of particular enjoyment for myself is the interesting mix; vocals are low whereas drums and especially (unusually) the bass guitar is highlighted and emphasized. The guitars, while aesthetically complementary, are unusually buried even below the low level of the vocals, creating a unique sound where it’s clear above all else that no one is ‘showing off’. I really appreciate the humility.

All these things being said, while I get the spirit of what the songs are about I don’t have any lyrics sheet. So I’m not exactly sure what the words are; the delivery can be the bored sort of sarcasm of Unwound’s Justin Trosper or the 90 day men but can also approach a stylized 80s post punk group like the Wipers — neither of which is conducive to my understanding of the pronunciation of the words. Again, not a bad thing — the sound is very enjoyable, it’s just that I don’t understand the words and with a record that sounds this good I’d very much like to. Especially when song titles like “I know”, “Dressed to Kill”, and “Bad Mood” certainly point to the kind of lyrics I’d really like.

And all of these and those and more in between the lines of the things I’ve written in this review I thinks it’s clear that ‘in summation’ (I promised my composition 101 professor I’d never do this as much as she insisted I should — look at me now Ms. Hoover!) I very much enjoy and appreciate this album and will definitely be looking forward to their next release (which I’ve been told is in the works and coming out soon). I eagerly await it guys — thanks for doing the discovery of a great album and your band for me!

-k. Sonin