The Exit Strategy - New Cities EP
Record Label: One Percent Press
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Promoting an output thickly carved from the celebration cake of Dischord records’ heyday years, New York outfit, The Exit Strategy, give further proof to the notion that the Underground Punk sounds of 80s DC disseminated their cause farther afield than just their local basements. The centrepiece, ‘We Don’t Celebrate’, for instant example, celebrates – funnily enough – the sparse, minimal machine-like instrumentation that triumphed in much of Fugazi’s work, while the ferocious spurt of ‘Addition by Subtraction’ stands in favour of the headier and more abrasive godfathers of the scene.
Yet one should not be thinking that this entire five track EP is solely set about summoning past musical triumphs, though. Whether it in the poignant, glistening enthusiasm that consumes the chord structure in the verses of ‘Are Real’, or the unsuspected melodic turn toward the end of ‘We Don’t Celebrate’, TES are convincing enough through their own ideas to realign any minor gripes that any sceptics may initially choose to dish out.
In short, New Cities is the product of a talented contemporary underground band paying gracious homage to the veterans of a scene now unfortunately victim to short worldwide supply. Many will argue that its aesthetics are too significant to a time in cultural and artistic history to be subjected to any attempt of unmitigated revival, and with that most will surely nod in thorough agreement. But to bare the flag of the new wave, to create but another facet of its endless reimagining, well nobody ever protested to that as being a crime.
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