If Dwyer’s headline superstar Thee Oh Sees are the muscle and the face of the Castle Face family, then Flat Worms are the savage young understudy; the dirty fightin’ kick you when you’re down’s. So rough around the edges they must wear a sandpaper wife-beater.
Beneath all the metaphors and hogwash, though, what we have here is a punk band reminiscent of the 80’s DC punk scene doing the usual punk thing. So far so punk. But stir in a lazier stoner too-drunk-to-fuck aesthetic of a band like Parquet Courts and suddenly we have something far more substantial, not to mention sustainable. How many straight-up punk bands are one-trick pony's or – if they’re lucky – one-album-wonders? With Flat Worms you get a palpable sense that there is bucket-loads to offer.
Flat Worms follows on from the band’s debut EP Red Hot Sand, released in 2016. While the EP was an excellent break-off, there is a gulf in class between it and the debut full-length. The production on Red Hot Sands was – intentionally probably – very gritty. The tracks were kind of wayward and it was essentially the noise of a band experimenting on tape. On Flat Worms, the production has been cleaned up (kinda) and there is a terrific flow in place throughout the record, while retaining – well, doubling – the really good bits.
Released: October 2017
Cat: CF092X
Label: Castle Face
