by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
It would seem these days that Chicago is spoiled with great bands that represent all corners of punk music (and punk adjacent rock). It’s not really a new phenomenon, but the Windy City music scene is thriving for the miscreants and outsiders, just as it should. Add Consensus Madness to the list of great new bands, the quartet playing a caustic brand of punk with elements of hardcore and noise rock colliding together, ultimately creating an energetic dissonance. Set to release their self-titled debut EP on September 15th via Iron Lung Records (Stress Positions, Retirement, Spirito Di Lupo), the record’s seven songs provide the perfect soundtrack for a burning world, not necessarily embracing the madness but kicking against it. The quartet are watching the death and destruction of society with a balled up fist, setting a torch to polite expectations, and their debut is the contempt boiling over.
Having shared “Madness” and “Behind,” the band share new single “Confined” together with their first music video, directed by Olivia Curry. The song’s proto-punk intensity and sonic density rip with a rusty sheen, the guitars sparking up against the garage punk rhythms, brash but surprisingly hooky. The song’s lyrics, shouted in hard-driven fragmented sentences, deals with being trapped in your own thoughts. The video takes the idea literally, as Citlally Fabela is confined to a wooden crate, working to break free. It’s a great static image that evolves together with the song, bursting the seams and arriving at “let’s mind less”.