The Men don’t mess around. In stark contrast to much of the highfalutin stuff coming out of Brooklyn these days, they’re four scruffy guys concerned with rock and roll and little else. There’s nothing ambient or synthetic or conceptual about these borough boys. And that’s all the better for them because, let’s be honest, here in the indiesphere we’ve been experiencing a real dearth of loud, aggressive guitar music that’s, you know, actually good. I can count on one hand the number of non-metal bands to emerge in the last five years who write top-rate songs that are also capable of melting people’s faces off. These are basic virtues that shouldn’t be ceded completely to the mainstream, no matter how unfashionable loud guitars have become in the still-lingering aftermath of the dreadful post-grunge era. The Men understand this implicitly, and that is why they’re one of our greatest assets.
The title track of their recent album, Open Your Heart, is actually one of the group’s tamer efforts. In fact, the entire album is a move to a slightly more melodic place than their previous breakthrough, Leave Home, which was more overtly bludgeoning. But that’s certainly not to say they’ve lost anything in translation. Like Hüsker Dü circa Zen Arcade, The Men have merely added writing bittersweet melodies to the long list of things they do very well. Little of the aggression has been lost, and the pure, pathological passion in their performance is still unmistakable. Listen, and be blown away.