Philadelphia Is What Makes 2024 Rock

Digging on the new albums from Sheer Mag, Mannequin Pussy and Pissed Jeans

March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 Dan Weiss 1 Comment 2024, Epitaph Records, Half Divorced, I Got Heaven, Mannequin Pussy, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philly, Pissed Jeans, Playing Favorites, Punk, Sheer Mag, Sub Pop Records, Third Man Records

The Now Sound of Philadelphia (Liberty Bell Image: Brittannica)

From Chubby Checker to Boyz II Men to The Roots, Philly has always been a musical hotbed.

Yet some time in the early 2010s, it exploded as a DIY rock scene to an unseen degree, from formal classic rockers (The War on Drugs, Low Cut Connie, Dr. Dog, all incredibly different acts) to scrappier basement heroes (Alex G, Modern Baseball, Screaming Females) brimming with passion and more smudged, amorphous skill sets.

But from Control Top to Hop Along, the region has never been a more powerful stronghold for punk and indie-rock than in the last decade, compelling the entire world towards the vitality of this scene at a time when it’s genuinely rare for a young, loud, guitar band to garner nationwide success.

By coincidence or alliance, two of the city’s greatest bands returned after a mutual, half-decade pause from their last full-lengths on March 1st. Mannequin Pussy used to be the most varied of the two. Starting out punk, they signed to Epitaph and released the startlingly polished Patience in 2019, possibly named-in-cheek for expanding their runtime to 25 minutes with tender grunge-ballads like “Drunk II” and four-minute titles like “In Love Again” with audible pianos and actual melodies that took their cue from, like, the Cranberries’ “Dreams.” Will Yip’s production actually took some getting used to, and after a couple years I reluctantly admit it was the right move to foreground Marisa Dabice’s careening vocals on genuine pop songs like “Who You Are.”

Mannequin Pussy I Got Heaven, Epitaph Records 2024

But I’m equally jazzed that on the new I Got Heaven, John Congleton pulls the roar of her band back up front alongside her in the mix. That’s apparent from the opening blast of the title track, which drags a marked Olivia Rodrigo influence through the mud with a guttural Dabice rapping Backxwash-esque outbursts like “what if Jesus himself ate my fucking snatch?” Even with the ever-present 90-second hardcore bombs (“Aching,” “OK? OK! OK? OK!”), the melodies and tantrums sound more integrated here than on Patience, even when “Nothing Like” pilfers the intimate-yet-anthemic synthpop propulsion of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Perfect.” It’s never a bad sign when it’s not immediately apparent which one is the better album.

That’s not the case with Sheer Mag’s Playing Favorites, their first new music at all in the 2020s and their best work since the Thin Lizzy-worshipping go-getter EPs they made their name on, I, II, and III, each one 50% better than the last and all available on the essential compilation named, well, Compilation. It may even be their best, period; for sure it’s up there with Sleater-Kinney’s Little Rope and the Paranoid Style’s The Interrogator as one of 2024’s truly great guitar albums. What they share with the latter, besides a religious devotion to rock and roll, is the spirit of variety: Elizabeth Nelson’s outfit stretched their sound to recall familiar touchstones like London Calling to Eliminator to subtler nods to the Stiff catalog they’ve been saluting lyrically for years.

Sheer Mag Playing Favorites, Third Man Records 2024

Sheer Mag frontwoman Tina Halliday remains a hurricane onstage and she’s more versatile than ever navigating an astonishing range of pastiches her band is now concocting. These include the New York Dolls (“Eat It and Beat It”), wicky-wah disco (“All Lined Up”), a Hall & Oates-tinged glamabilly shuffle (“I Gotta Go”), and the nearly indescribable “Merchanical Garden” which pulls in jangle-pop, funk, and a wild Mdou Moctar guest solo among its six minutes. “Moonstruck” announces itself with 20 seconds of country twang just because. And how about the Marshall Crenshaw-inflected closer “When You Get Back”? The key is they don’t try to discard their sound like so many bands who falter when they rashly aim to avoid pigeonholing at all costs. Sheer Mag’s lifeblood remains AC/DC and their ilk, but they don’t let that weigh down their craft or limit their scope; a gorgeously arpeggiated tune like “Tea on the Kettle” makes room for everything it’s doing inside of just two and a half minutes.

Coming back from an even longer hiatus is the Lehigh Valley’s Pissed Jeans, who’ve been on the noisier fringes for two decades running, far more in tune with their label Sub Pop’s history of grunge (or Flipper or Melvins) than much of what’s dominated indie-rock during that time. Their last album until this past Friday was 2017’s tighter and clearer Why Love Now, which is admittedly the first time I ever found anything to enjoy in them. Whether it’s their embrace of more songful hard rock as they approach middle age (“Helicopter Parent” sounds like doom-metal AC/DC) or the revitalizing nü-hardcore wave they’re finally in step with, their sixth album Half Divorced is just as awesome and in its own way, as multi-referential, as Playing Favorites.

Pissed Jeans Half Divorced, Sub Pop Records 2024

Not only have Matt Korvette’s ramblings finally met the moment in universal application (opener “Killing All the Wrong People” is a worthy murder fantasy for anyone dreading November, and whose fears aren’t “Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt” speaking to), but the music itself finally approaches the magnetic intensity of Black Flag’s Damaged, down to the gang vocals on “TV Party” homage “Everywhere Is Bad,” which is virtually the same length.

Look no further than these excellent albums for a guitar-rock fix without any stylistic walls up, no fusty rockist defenses. Or proof that the young bands who excited you yesteryear can diversify and surprise without losing their essence. Or evidence that Philadelphia still sets the bar higher than anyone.