ASPHYXIUM ZINE

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

EP Review: NEW BLOOD BOILERS Running Blind (Independent) by Dave Wolff

Place of origin: Mastic, New York, USA
Genre: Punk, alternative rock, heavy metal
EP: Self-titled
Label: Independent
Released: March, April, May, July 2018
The Long Island community of Mastic is a quiet, out-of-the-way town where you wouldn’t expect a band hungry for the old days would emerge from. But then again, some of the most influential bands have been known to emerge from less likely locations. While some of these bands have not been as successful as they were influential, something about them still attracts new listeners nonetheless. I remember the liner notes written for a punk compilation series from the late 1990s or early 2000s that claimed punk’s earliest inklings existed in the rousing nature of rock and roll that disrupted '50s post-World War II mainstream culture. I don’t remember the title of this series, but you could consider it a testimony to why this Long Island band’s formula can suitably work. Inspired by proto-punk like New York Dolls, Ramones and Johnny Thunders as well as classic rock from Beatles to Black Sabbath, New Blood Boilers are streaming a six song EP, released track by track over several months, that is much like a stream on a desert island. Their seditious early rock and punk remains relevant in Long Island’s contemporary, straight arrow, keep-up-with-the-Joneses environment. As the regurgitated pop instilled in the public consciousness is increasingly formulaic, a need remains for songs like Point Of View and Forever Yesterday to remind us of the sordid, dingy heroin chic the Dolls surprised us with between 1971 and ‘76. No less songs like Gig Box, Fine Line and Running Blind which further illustrate how rebellious inventiveness re-emerged twenty years later with Living Colour, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. Say what you will, but at the end of the day that temperament cannot be brought to naught. It will always resurface in one form or another no matter how mediocre things become, as that mediocrity itself creates the need for it to return. -Dave Wolff

Lineup:
Jonathan Lesley Habers: Bass, vocals
Joseph Riese: Guitar, backing vocals
George Ziegler: Drums

Track list:
1. Point Of View
2. Forever Yesterday
3. Gig Box
4. Fine Line
5. Foreign Entanglements
6. Running Blind

1 comment:

  1. Thanks, Dave much appreciated, considering my former band members, and I, have played CBGB's, as it was a crazy time, we would often meet down to earth musicians which are now icons and, occasionally, hang out in bars with guys like Legs Mcneal from PUNK magazine, you hit the nail on the head, of what I, and our vision is.

    Joe NewBlood
    Guitar and Vocals

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