Very Paranoia Premiere “High Ledge” Video; Self-Titled LP out Feb. 15
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 25th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Very Paranoia will release their self-titled debut full-length through Who Can You Trust? Records on Feb. 15, and in the spirit of the no-bullshit brand of classic punk rock they play, I’ll keep the story straightforward. There was a band. They made an album. There’s a video. Preorders start Feb. 5 for standard and screened-sleeve versions.
That about sums up the situation when it comes to Very Paranoia‘s Very Paranoia, though perhaps it doesn’t do justice to the 26-minute long-player’s 12 component tracks and the restlessness they convey, at once raw and familiar in their mindset. Even listening to the mp3 of opener “Bricks,” I can close my eyes and see the vinyl spinning on the turntable. It’s that kind of record, classic in spirit, punk rock unafraid to have guitar solos, straight-ahead catchy hooks and sans-frills tonality that’s deceptively specific in its intent. Verses, choruses, electricity and not one single track over three minutes long. If you can’t vibe to that, well, screw it. Go listen to something else. What am I, your concierge?
The band offered up their debut 7″ (review here) in 2018, and cuts like “High Ledge” — with
the video premiering below — and “Brain Stain” and the boogie-punk “You’ll Be Sorry” follow suit in their willful primitivism, roots-punk building on a Blue Cheer-noisy foundation as “Cracked Picture Frame” betray a classic-heavy backdrop on which punker disaffection has been overlaid. You can dig it. Fuzzy and catchy, the Velvet Underground cover “Foggy Notion” precedes the shuffler “Sleep Alone” and before you know it, you’re through “Blasted” and “Choked and Freezin'” and into closer “Something Will Go Wrong,” which, to put it simply, doesn’t.
You know what Very Paranoia sounds like? It sounds like the abandonment of pretense. Yeah, there’s pedigree here, but whatever. It sounds like these guys got together and decided screw it all, it was time to get as close to back to basics as possible. They’re not the first to make that decision — fucking nobody’s the first to do anything — but the results are inarguably effective throughout these songs, and though they’ve apparently sat on the shelf for the better part of a year, they’re no dustier than is intended. I’ll say again: you can dig it. Believe in yourself. Believe in rock and roll.
At the end of the day, all I can do is put this here and go on and on about the righteousness of the cause. Whether or not you actually take the two minutes — literally — to check it out is up to you. For whatever it might be worth, I don’t think you’ll regret it.
PR wire info follows below. Please enjoy:
Very Paranoia, “High Ledge” official video premiere
Very Paranoia formed in 2018 with the express intent of delivering short, sharp shocks of electrified rock and roll that simultaneously heralded both a “war on music” and offered a way forward using the scattered shards left behind on the sticky, rickety fields of battle and trapped in the structurally unsound masonry memory of those walls still standing around us.
Composed of veterans of the sonic conflicts from the Annihilation Time/Lecherous Gaze/Hot Lunch/Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound divisions, the four of them huddled together in their San Francisco rehearsal room where they quickly hammered out an arsenal of crude missives designed to fire as roaring missiles into the heart of 2019.
After whetting their attack, Very Paranoia removed from their squalid hovel and harangued an unsuspecting, but susceptible public with 25-minute blasts set off around their local strongholds. The band then traveled nearly 1000 miles to the Sonoran Desert where they set up camp at Midtown Island Studio in Tucson, Arizona. The Island’s sole occupant and aural wizard Matt Rendon of the Resonars captured 15 tracks over three 10-hour stretches. Twelve of these tracks were then transmitted to Tim Green at Louder Studios in the Valley of Grass, California, for mastering in early 2020 before being shipped abroad and stamped into this rasping document bearing the inscription of “WHO-42.”
Having weathered the remainder of that seemingly inexorable year, with the dawn of 2021 comes the debut album by Very Paranoia on Who Can You Trust? Records.
TRACK LISTING:
A1 – Bricks
A2 – High Ledge
A3 – Brain Stain
A4 – Pack It In
A5 – You’ll Be Sorry
A6 – Nobody Home
B1 – Cracked Picture Frame
B2 – Foggy Notion
B3 – Sleep Alone
B4 – Blasted
B5 – Choked And Freezin’
B6 – Something Will Go Wrong
PERSONNEL:
Cory Linstrum – vocals
Rob Alper – guitar, backing vocals
Chris Grande – bass
Jefferson Marshall – drums
All songs by VP except FOGGY NOTION by VU.
The LP is released in an edition of 300 copies on black vinyl.
An alternate cover version with screen printed sleeve is available in an edition of 30 copies.
Both include a copy of “A VERY MANIFESTO”, a booklet containing lyrics, photos, flyers, and stories, as a companion piece to the album.
Very Paranoia on Thee Facebooks
Who Can You Trust? Records on Thee Facebooks
Who Can You Trust? Records website
