by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Washington, DC’s BRNDA are soon approaching a decade together as a band, a longevity that’s produced two full lengths and most recently, 2018’s Thanks For Playing EP (Banana Tapes). Last year and all it’s ample time gave the trio a chance to complete their third record, Do You Like Salt?, capturing the band at their artist punk best, engineered by Dischord staple Justin Moyer. Due out August 20th via Crafted Sounds, it’s an album that finds its own groove, sputtering and darting around impeccably tight rhythms and an irreverent sense of humor, drawing comparisons to bands past (PYLON) and present (Fake Fruit).
“Service Loser” is the record’s second single (following the great “Perfect World”), a song that definitely shows off the band’s unique sense of humor and artistic vision. The first few times I listened to “Service Loser” I thought the lyrics were in another language… turns out I’m just not that smart, it’s English. The song is roughly about tennis, as can be heard in the sporadically yelped “tennis’” that are peppered throughout, but you’d be forgiven for not trying to make any sense of the lyrics and to just enjoy the way the band are pronouncing words and phrases such as “canyon,” “chew eh?" and “a short dweeb munches food.” It’s a wild ride but big on groove and a lack of all things serious.
Speaking about the song, the band shared:
“What began as an homage to the sublimity of “I go then you go” evolved into an attempt to encode an arcane scoring system. This approach collapsed under itself leaving behind only the incongruous lengths of each song segment. When by the end the song is repeating itself, having failed to communicate anything meaningful, sometimes the best thing one can do is prevent the other person from claiming an ace.”