Hygiene Exclusive LP

A Newbury Comics exclusive color vinyl pressing.

Drug Church is a band without fear. For the past ten years, the Albany and Los Angeles-based five-piece have been staunchly creating their own singular path in making distinctly outsider music thats somehow at once welcoming and instantly satisfying. The bands songs revel in sonic contradictions, seamlessly combining crushing aggression with bulletproof hooks, while the lyrics unflinchingly explore lifes darkness and discomfort with sardonic witand without judgement. On Hygiene, their impending fourth full-length, Drug Church is as uncompromising as ever, and it has resulted in their boldest set of songs to date. Drug Church are still demanding that the listener comes to them, not the other way around, and with Hygiene, they just might.

With each successive release Drug Churchvocalist Patrick Kindlon, guitarists Nick Cogan and Cory Galusha, bassist Pat Wynne, and drummer Chris Villeneuvehave been pushing the seemingly intractable elements of their sound further and further. Where their critically acclaimed 2018 album, Cheer, brought more melody into the bands combustible music, Hygiene doubles down without losing an ounce of bite in the execution. Sometimes I say we make radio music that cant be played on the radio, Kindlon laughs. I think its likeable but its also just not designed for mass appeal.

Hygiene is in fact an incredibly appealing album despite being difficult to categorizeor perhaps because of it. Recorded with producer/engineer Jon Markson and clocking in at a lean 26 minutes, the record makes it abundantly clear that Drug Church arent content to rest on their laurels. Across ten strikingly dynamic songs, Cogan and Galusha alternate between massive riffs and some of the most unexpectedly melodic guitar playing that has ever touched Drug Churchs music, while Villeneuve and Wynnes rhythm section unflaggingly shakes the ground. The bands foundation in hardcore still provides plenty of stagedive-inspiring energy, but even Kindlons signature roar has taken a tuneful turn with layered vocals, raw harmonies, and cadences hooky enough to have listeners shouting along after one listen.

While Hygiene is an undeniable leap forward for Drug Church, its not one made by some grand design. In fact, bands writing process is refreshingly mystique-free: the instrumentalists simply hone the songs until theyre ready to show them to Kindlon, who offers intentionally unhelpful notes before writing most of his lyrics under the gun in the studio. The beauty that happens here is accidental, he explains. Its not that musicians have some insight into the world, its just that by doing something in art you can trip over these transcendent momentsbut you cant endeavour to make them.

Its a fitting approach thats also reflected in Kindlons lyrics, many of which deal with the relationship between art and the people consuming it. Theres a blunt-yet-affecting quality that appears throughout Hygiene, as he walks a tightrope between observation, honesty, absurdity, frustration, and humorall with a willingness to question the messier parts of modern life that many would prefer to simply ignore. Whatever milieu were living in right now is not one I was intended for, he says. The conversation is not asking us to personally challenge ourselves or try to better ourselves. Its a push to be in other peoples business and judge each other all the time. And I have no interest in judging strangers.

Hygiene feels less like its kicking against the clock and more like its embracing the reality of it. At some point you have to admit to yourself that all your plans and goals are subject to the randomness of life, Kindlon says. But on the flipside, if you dont have goals, how do you know where youre going? On closing track Athlete on Bench, Kindlon sings Im living between shrinking margins, turning an acknowledgement of niche passions into an anthemic finale. Thats the quiet aspiration in Drug Churchs uncompromising nature:its ambition on their own terms, a desire to simply be the absolute best at what they do. Theres value in trying to be exceptional, at least in your own mind, Kindlon says. Im exceptional at virtually nothing, but striving for it has given my life some purpose. Or at least its led me to this hotel room in Denver on tour.