It’s August.
Not only is it August, but it is the middle of August and it feels like before I even finish typing this what’s left of summer is already sneaking out the back door. In some ways this summer has come and gone in the blink of an eye while in other ways the last several months have felt like a never ending lifetime.
Just a laundry list of plans and hopes lost to quarantine. The one upside we could hope for was that we would start to see the creative output inspired by the aftermath of putting the world on pause.
Enter Oakland’s Grumpster. Who have just released “Growing Pains," their latest single for punk powerhouse Asian Man Records and today’s Song of the Day here at No Echo.
Building on the momentum provided by last fall’s debut LP, Underwhelmed, this was to be a break out year for the East Bay upstarts, but COVID-19 put the brakes on a planned North American outing with Anti-Flag.
After months of sheltering in place and uncertainty, the pop-punk outfit instead responded to the growing levels of cabin fever by getting back to writing and entering the District Recording Studio in San Jose to record the effort.
Thick, bouncing guitars paired with nuclear levels of you-gotta-be-kidding-me eye roll and snark, paint a picture of someone managing to make the most of a bleak situation and finding a way to dance while the ashes of a failed romance rain upon them.
“Growing Pains” is the flip side to “Teeth," which saw a release a few weeks back. A 7 inch featuring both tracks, Mindless, is available for pre-order now through AMR with delivery expected this fall.
Tagged: grumpster
