I remember thinking it was an extremely punk-rock move for Uniform to release their snarlingly political hardcore record Wake in Fright on election day 2017, but from the perspective of 2021 that feels a little less impressive to me only because we’ve lived through so many comparably stupid days since then that we can’t even keep track of them. As far as I know, the January 6 insurrection was the only such date to get its own CNN documentary so far, and that happened to be the day Deaf Club—a new project featuring The Locust’s Justin Pearson, Brian Amalfitano of ACxDC, and a handful of other West Coast hardcore punk busybodies—brought the songs that make up their debut LP into the recording studio.
The latest single to be unleashed from Productive Disruption embodies the manic energy both expected from these individual artists and anyone watching footage of a militia of overly patriotic goons invading our nation’s capitol with a suspicious amount of ease. “Don’t Forget to Live” recalls the chaotic early-’00s sounds of The Locust and Daughters as filtered through contemporary proteges like Death Goals and Bone Cutter. Adding to the unruliness, the track’s video pairs mostly inscrutable Handycam footage with the single’s intentionally Dadaist lyrics.
“The words are roughly inspired by Situationist International text as well as the Dada movement, and the song in general was heavily influenced by the unrest we experienced in the start of the pandemic with protests and social injustices that were and are still taking place in America,” Pearson explains. “The song is in support of giving power to the people, as well as a sort of fuck-you in layman’s terms to people who lack empathy and who care more about their class, gaining more wealth, and over all, some people’s white fragility.”
Watch the video below. Productive Disruption drops January 6 (hmm, that date looks familiar!) via Three One G Records, and you can pre-order it here.
