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It’s quite easy to get caught up with Rosenstock’s history and body of work, he spent ten years fronting a far more ska-centric outfit called Bomb the Music Industry! A band that earned its reputation as a hardcore DIY operation, releasing all its records for free and breaking up only when the day-job hustle got too bleak. But truth be told, Rosenstock has never been more powerful than with his current line-up & latest full-length album “POST”, which was surprisingly dropped just hours after a drunken New Year’s Eve show in Philadelphia, on January 1st this year.

“Dumbfounded, downtrodden and dejected, crestfallen, grief-stricken and exhausted, trapped in my room while the house was burnin’ to the motherfuckin’ ground”

From the opening line from the track “USA” – which evolves from guitar chugger to synth interlude to gang-vocal coda in the space of seven and a half minutes. Looking at the “clerk at the midwestern service station” or the “man in a crossover with his family”, Rosenstock demands to find out who exactly betrayed America.“I won’t hate you, I just need to know, please be honest Tell me was it you?” he begs, frustrated and confused with not only strangers & the people in charge of the good old US of A, but people he might of considered friends.

While providing one of the more upbeat tempos for the album, “MELBA” looks at how the abuse of power is a careless exercise for those who hold it, and the effects it has on those sitting at the bottom of a hierarchy. Rosenstock yells throughout the song “Let’s go back to Melbourne, we can start over, because mistakes get forgotten, dreams can be remembered”, using our city of Melbourne as the escape route, a place he has spent a lot of time and come to love.

In true Jeff Rosenstock fashion, the rest of the lyrics on “POST” revolve around anxiety, insecurity, anger, ennui and other bummers of day to day life and the album just seamlessly flows from start to finish, ending with the track “Let Them Win’, which snaps back into where “USA” left off, with an “us versus them” mentality, culminating in an ambient synth arrangement.

Joining Rosenstock as national supports will be two of Melbourne’s favourite acts. “Lincoln Le Fevre”, who will be bringing his backing band “The Insiders” along for the ride, and “Hanny J” – who when not touring the world playing bass with her band “Clowns”, is playing shows under her own alias.

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AREA 7 VS THE PORKERS

with Los Capitanes, Bagster, The Mad Dash & Chris Duke & the Royals

Saturday December 01, 2018 – 18+ – Doors 6pm

Manning Bar @ Manning House, Sydney University, NSW

Tickets $30 + BF ON SALE NOW

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Follow Jeff Rosenstock

Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

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Amnplify EH