Outloud! Records, June 13, 2020
Grim Deeds is back, and this time with a new friend.
For a bunch of years now, Grim Deeds has been putting out music like a sort of pop-punk Robert Pollard, using several different monikers and releasing stuff right and left. Along the way, he’s found a few kindred spirits including a newfound Arizona accomplice that goes by Lesser Creatures. On Split, Deeds shares some time with Lesser Creatures, each giving 8 songs to the record.
The Deeds half of Split is more of what he does so well: pop punk hooks, a “metal” moment or two, a range of stylistic shifts that step beyond pop punk while staying firmly within, and lyrics that are typically reflective, funny, dark, and most consistently, thoughtful. My favorite stuff includes the of-the-moment “Social Media Distancing” and its earcandy guitar hooks and vocal melody, the poppy drums bouncing along to a surfy guitar on the go-find-someone-who-cares anthem “I’m Not Interested”, and the cool cover of Screeching Weasel‘s “My Friends Are Getting Famous” with backing vocals that sound beamed in from the 1950’s. And “Crushing Realization”, which has more of those great hooks and seems so dark in the constant “realization” that life is pointless, really ends up as a sort of make-the-most-of-life song when Deeds comes around to singing “the crushing realization that our time is too short” at the end. The metal moment on the Deeds side comes with the chugging guitar on the frontline COVID/healthcare workers celebration “Behind The Mask”. “When You’re Dead” gets even weirder, setting a mid-tempo bounce to a sort of countryfied song and I can almost hear the twang in the guitar. But, like Deeds does, he keeps it all catchy.
The other half reveals an interesting character in Lesser Creatures. Similar to Deeds, Creatures mix in a few different influences and stays within the pop punk realm, albeit a slightly more aggressive and rough type of pop punk, owing in no small part to the snotty and sneering vocals that alternately remind me of Ben Weasel and B.A. from Sloppy Seconds. “Hey You” is a catchy Screeching Weasel type of song, with great organ sounds lurking beneath the surface. The melody is catchy and the “whoa-oh” backing vocals nail it. Same goes for the addicting singalong “Peep” and the goofy Ramones tribute “Creature Hop”, which rips appropriately from “Cretin Hop”. And things get real weird without going full-on disaster on “Fake”, a thrashing, pounding, metal-sounding song with drums so prominent that it almost sounds industrial. But it holds tight to a pop punk vocal structure and plays around with poppy melodies and ends up sort of working. It’s certainly different, but it falls in line with some of the odd stuff done by Deeds.
Split is a pretty fun record. It brings me into the Lesser Creatures fold and gives me more of that Grim Deeds music I’m into. If you’re already on board, you’ll like this. And if you’re not, give this a try, it might sell you on two new bands.
You might like this if:
- You like your punk rock with a bit of bounce, some great songs, and some fun detours
- You like to singalong with songs
You might not if:
- You think punk rock is only punk rock if it’s angry and aggressive all the time; you have no time to sing along
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He’s very secretive, he might be an alien.
