Shitshow Victories, Happy Birthday to More Pain’s flexi disk, 4/19/19

There are many reasons you should check out Nick Zinner and Justin Pearson’s project More Pain. Here are seven of them.

1) This record was released two years ago today. Birthdays are fun. Light candles then blow them out. Eat cake. Celebrate good shit that has happened and do so whenever you can because bad shit is always around the corner comin’ for you like a beast in a nightmare. Enjoy the victories in the midst of the shitshow.

2) The record itself is a square flexi disk with x-ray art. Even if you have no way to play it, the physical product is a beautiful, absurd, rad thing. Hang it on your wall. Use it as a bookmark in a really large book. Tape it to your car window to show that you have good taste.

3) This current era of sickness, isolation, and political division fucking sucks. Music like this feels good in times like these.

4) Short songs = better songs. These songs are pretty fuckin’ short. This whole thrillride of a record is just a bit longer than a minute.

5) A lot of music is really terrible and a lot of artists are total fucking douchebags. This is a remedy for that. There is an absolute lack of douchebaggery here.

6) If you like Nick’s work in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Justin’s music from bands like The Locust, Dead Cross, Planet B, and Swing Kids you will like this. If you like Justin and Nick together in Head Wound City you will fall in the deepest kind of true love with this album.

7) Most importantly, these three songs fucking rip. Nick and Justin’s collaboration is a healthy medical-grade dose of thrash, feedback, blastbeats, and cathartic fury. It doesn’t fuck around. Nor should you.

–Adam Gnade, author of Locust House