Monogamy Party – Pus City Album Review (w/ Full Album Stream)

You know when an album is titled Pus City that it is going to be a sloppy, wild, rock and roll mess of chords, bass, drums, and howling vocals. Seattle’s Monogamy Party live up to the biography on their Facebook page — “we’re like a dance party for sociopaths.” Not sure I could describe the trio’s brand of noise rock any better.

Monogamy Party play fuzz-drenched noise rock circa fellow ex-city dwellers Big Business — only even more tripped and freaked out. Pus City comes blasting out on all three cylinders on the opening track “Never to Rise,” and doesn’t cease to stop until the record stops spinning. The album harkens back to a time when the city of Seattle was less known for beards and soft vocals and more for rock and roll played with such a reckless abandon it can hardly be considered music. Monogamy Party sound exactly like you would imagine they would, festering in a dark and dank bar, where the beer flows like urine and vomit.

With song titles like “Drunk or Dying” and “Fucking Out Your Brains,” it is clear Monogamy Party couldn’t care less. Dueling vocals howl and yelp throughout with bass guitars barely audible through their own mess of distortion pedals. “Covenant of Brothers” starts a bit slow and builds into a frenetic pace and just as quickly comes crashing down like an addict on cocaine. And who knows, Monogamy Party could be those addicts. This is the way rock and roll was meant to sound — terrible, frantic, and making you want to chug beers and throw the empty cans at the walls of your life around you.