Flasher make bracing and uncompromising music. That the band features a member of D.C.'s Priests ought to convince you of the veracity of that statement. Flasher is set to reissue their 2016 self-titled cassette on vinyl and other formats this week and I'm here to tell you how great this is.
Out Friday on Sister Polygon Records (future home of the upcoming Priests release), Flasher by Flasher is vaguely New Wave as filtered through a harDCore sensibility. If opener "Tense" echoes pre-bombast era Simple Minds releases, the excellent "All Over" surges like a combination of P.i.L. and "Disorder"-era Joy Division. Austere and full of knife-sharp hooks, the tunes of Flasher channel a whole lotta great influences into something modern. "Erase Myself" is marginally more accessible, catchy without being compromised, while the buzzing "Throw It Away" rings like Interpol if the band had stuck to their indie roots and not smoothed out anything dangerous from their output. "Love Me" marries a Nation of Ulysses-like brand of shouty harDCore with something more angular, like a Gang of Four 45, and then the subtle closer "Destroy" adds a near-shoegaze kind of guitar fuzz to what remains a blistering bit of post-punk noise.
At their very best, Flasher serve up something close to what the very best bands in the first wave of U.K. DIY punk promised routinely. The hooks here are uniformly strong and the overall effect is one of very, very early U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen material going in some dark and hard directions. Fantastic!
Flasher by Flasher is out on Friday via Sister Polygon Records. More details via the link below too.
[Photo: Michael Andrade]