"Crack" is radical reduction - for their second album, the Berlin band stripped away all differences and embellishments, recording a punk album in their rehearsal space that needs no further genre labels. DIY isnt a gimmick here but an unavoidable necessity - Crack was made without a studio, without a producer, and without a clue. SEXBEAT approaches punk with historical awareness, drawing from a wide range of influences, from Oblivians and Suicide to Hot Snakes. Sonically, they take cues from the '90s Dischord Records catalog: bass and drums drive forward, while guitar and vocals spit and snarl in between. The songs shift between being heavily fragmented and mechanical to intricately crafted, but they always remain raw and unfiltered. Lyrically, its all about what grinds your gears: broken politics, broken society, and all the little broken things within ourselves. References range from Gordon Solie Motherfkers** ("Give them a dirty floor for a stage. A five bucks show and I'm stoked for days") to George Orwell ("Four legs good, two legs bad"). And in the end, even Grammy winner Beck gets a nod, because overarching it all is: "You make me wanna try crack." |