by Jonathan Bannister (@goblintenebre.bsky.social)
Straw Man Army are a duo from New York City and Earthworks is their third album. Their music rests comfortably in that punk, post-punk area. Maybe it’s because they’re a duo that make punk music, but I always group them in my mind with later era Dischord bands like Soccer Team, Antelope, and The Evens. Others have mentioned anarcho-punk and I think this is a result of their lyrics. Straw Many Army is not a band to listen to if you are wanting to disengage from the realities of living in America and the world at large. There is no respite from the daily horrors that beset us as we try to get through the rest of 2024 and look ahead to another four years of Trump. The duo of Owen Deutsch and Sean Fentress have built their music to tackle these issues head on, they strip them bare for all to see. A listing of the failures that have come before, the ones currently ongoing, and the ones we have to look forward to. It’s an album that is refreshingly straight-forward and clear headed.
While their first album looked towards the past, and the second to the present, it is said Earthworks looks ahead, but it’s a future we are already living. Like finding a map after you’ve arrived at the destination. Deutsch and Fentress both play off each other musically. The drums gallop and roll. One tends to notice more the runs and notes of the guitar over chords. They often sing along together in unison. There is no harmony, choosing to act as one voice made from two. A united cry calling out to all who would listen, seeking to bring others into the fold to join them. I can’t help but feel the impact of the music is tenfold when experienced collectively. There is an urgency to this album. This is the best the duo has sounded so far in terms of production and songwriting. The pace is pushed, a feeling of being chased, a soundtrack for racing through a crumbling, burned out husk of a city ravaged by itself. It’s impossible to not move listening to this album.
Lyrically, Earthworks is an album where you run the risk of just wanting to post the whole lyric sheet. I’ll just try and give some highlights. “America, It’s not a country, it’s a business” they say on the tightly wound “Spiral”. There is an importance to naming things running throughout the lyrics of the album. That while we might see many problems, they can be traced back to similar causes. ”NYPD, KKK, IDF they’re all the same / just different names.” On another stand out track “Staring At the Sun,” they sing “What would it take to lose your life today? / seeking shelter in a public space? / it’s a dangerous place, these United States.”
“In the dark times / will there be singing? / There will be singing / about the dark times,” they sing on “Extinction Burst,” maybe the mission statement for what Straw Man Army are attempting on this album. The music is there to bolster the lyrics and make it cathartic and that is where the tension lies, there is a push and pull within the frantic guitar licks and driving drum beats, a question that asks is this a one way ticket? I often think of the warehouse dance scene in Footloose, only instead of raging against a small minded town it’s the soundtrack to fuel you as you unleash all the pent up aggression and rage one accumulates from living in a small minded country. One where people are cast aside for profit, where those in charge try to convince you your eyes aren’t seeing what they’re seeing. That would try and have you believe that you’re just going crazy and not that you’re being manipulated. It can make for bleak listening if one sees it as inevitable, but Straw Man Army don’t seem to see it that way. As they sing elsewhere on “Extinction Burst,” “It’s always bad news first / It’s only up from here if you expect the worst…Just before it bursts! / Decay is your friend—(how bad can it get?), Even empire’s end.” Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.