Hot and Informed - EP

Album Review

Yet another potent find for the D.C. flagship label. Just when you wondered if the capitol has stopped producing powerful new post-punk underground bands, "And the Washington Monument Blinks Goodnight" and "Busy Lights Busy Carpet" hit all the right jagged chords, like a cross between Gang of Four, Proletariat, and their '80s Dischord forebears. The production, by the magic formula of Fugazi member and label co-owner Ian MacKaye with engineer Don Zientara at Inner Ear Studios (a combination that's produced more great records in 20 years than we can name), is hard-hitting and clear, and the playing is wired and well arranged. And then "Kiss Distinctly American" forms a different wrinkle, a slower, methodical buildup with scattered ringing chords filling empty passages like shadows invading a bare room. Instead of signing trad emo bands (often groups that miss the point by copying the uncopyable Fugazi), Desoto and Dischord, the labels that founded the genre when it was fresh, prove that they still have the best ear for more forward-looking talent. Hot and Informed is just that.