Fiercely undeterred by the tides of mainstream acceptance, Oakland's XBXRX have been chugging out their own manic, splintered strain of punk for ten years now. Although the occasionally revolving collective of musicians have come a long way from the 8-minute sets, blast-beats, broken limbs, and careening teenage mayhem that punctuated their first tours, the raucous sense of joy they are most famous for (perhaps because music saved them from an adolescence in Mobile, Alabama) is still very much palpable on their third full-length studio album, Wars. This one is as close as the inescapably jangly XBXRX will ever get to classic rock; peppered with undeniable riffs and definite songs -- unlike previous albums and seven-inches, which were so gleefully chaotic that song structure was often abandoned -- it's their sharpest and most mature offering to date. Although I’m not sure what the titular Wars are -- perhaps every band’s ongoing battle against self-destruction -- XBXRX seem to be emerging from them triumphantly, holding their broken drumsticks and smashed bass cabinets high.
~Claire Evans
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