Riot Squad Media – 17 November 2023
Creating beauty out of the devastation of life
As a member of The End Times, Fat Chance and the recently formed The Chemical Imbalance, its hard to imagine Weftin has much more to say. Hard to imagine but clearly possible, the evidence is scribbled all over Weftin’s solo record The Black Pill. A manic, schizophrenic and beautiful cacophony erupting from speakers. The madness in the music belies the talent… or maybe it’s the talent feeding the madness. Beautiful mind and all.
Wefton isn’t just a member of these three aforementioned acts along with this solo project, this prolific, over-achieving bastard is out here doing it all on The Black Pill, performing the vocals, the guitar, the bass, drums, not to mention saxophone, piano and somehow he even worked on the production of the record. When the artist is doing it all, it’d be easy to expect some consistency across the record, but the only steady truth to The Black Pill is that its all over the place and its fucking transcendent. The record bolts across genres, careening off of and smashing into the rails crunching with ravenous rage. Weftin’s influences had been mixed together, baked into a cake and that cake was smashed violently yet playfully right into your face.
The opening strums of “Shepard Two Tone” gives Pixies meets Catch 22 vibes before the vocals kick down the doors dressing down and sending a message to Rudy and his boys. The fuck-you to clout chasers in the ska scene will hit you right in the sphincter, puckering the buttholes of gatekeepers worldwide. The song breaks into the discordant stride that passes the baton to track 2.
“The Internet” need no explanation and I got a kick out of it needing no intro as it blasts out of the speakers tearing down the walls hoisting the trolls and keyboard warriors destroying every human’s sense of peace. As the thrash reverts to upstrokes and back to the chugging guitars, the fractured harmonies show off the fragility one gets spending too much time staring down the blue glow of social media. Weftin senses the cannibalization of the modern world and pleads with us to put down the fork.
“AAAAHHHH!!!!” continues the breakneck pace of the record again holding the flames to the feet of the internet denizens obsessing over the cred they are so desperate to attain from people they will never know. The 92 second shotgun blast of adrenaline fills the void we create for ourselves as Weftin fights to overcome his own unhealthy fascination with the Meta-verse.
By the time “Terms / Conditions” comes along to slow things down the average listener will be on the verge of a cardiac catastrophe as Weftin helps listeners mainline adrenaline to their ear-holes. Similar to the amazing debut from Codefendants, Weftin combines ska, punk, hip-hop and anger before the breakdown shows off the vocal range of Weftin as he channels Layne Staley and then returns to his bread and butter ska-core growls.
On a record full of “what the fuck, how does this sound so good?” moments, “Lie Down & Rot” somehow manages to further shock andnconfuse with raucous and delightful dissonance. Weftin creates a musical Tower of Babel of sounds and notes and tempos that should not work together yet meld into an atonal masterpiece. Every sensibility says this song should suck l, but here I am bruising my knuckles while I stomp my hands on the steering wheel and enjoying the shit out of every busted capillary.
Closing out the record is the epic title track, “The Black Pill.” The liner notes explain the track to be written as part of a sleep deprivation experiment, but the 15 minute track shows no signs of fatigue throughout. The ska-thrash “November Rain” is a study in brutality and a calculated descent into madness in five movements brimming with urgency and introspection. A perfect encapsulation of the entire album plays out across this microcosm of a track.
The Black Pill finds beauty and creation in the disasters of modern existence. The record itself is a wildfire, a bolt lightning and madness strikes with beauty and leaves disaster and destruction in its wake. Weftin, like nature itself has taken the crippling attacks on life and created a new beauty.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
