by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Minneapolis’ Green/Blue released Paper Thin, their second album of 2022, at the start of the summer. The record is dark and dissonant, rolling over the heat of the season like a plume of carefully constructed shadows. Even with the stifling density of their often motorik post-punk, Green/Blue keep a breezy element in their songs, adding a heft of basement jangle for sonic levity. Led by Jim Blaha (Blind Shake, Shadow In The Cracks, Jim & the French Vanilla) and Annie Sparrows (Awesome Snakes), the band sounded razor focused throughout the record, bouncing rhythms off the walls with a steady churn and an insistent knack for unlikely melodies. Just in case you thought two full lengths had expended the band’s recorded output for the year, Green/Blue return with “Worry / Gimme Hell,” a pair of singles originally recorded during the Paper Thin sessions. Due out digitally today via Feel It Records (Why Bother?, Freak Genes, CLASS), with a 7” release to follow in December, the songs strip back the band’s coiled burn for something decidedly more garage.
In the spirit of Dead Moon before them, Green/Blue have wrangled the simplicity of “Worry” and “Gimme Hell” to write some of their best songs to date, punk anthems that’ll have you shouting in no time. While they’ve upped the jangle and loosened the density, the duel vocal approach on “Worry” is plenty epic, a big nasty punk song with pop splendor and self-awareness. The vocals pair Sparrows and Blaha together for a riotous gang effect, giving it a sort of last-call at the seedy bar kind of energy. Which is to say, it’s pretty much perfect, a song about the struggle that feels downright triumphant. “Gimme Hell” follows suit, a down but never out call to rise up and fight. The skeletal guitars and punchy rhythm keep it firmly in the garage spit-and-jangle mode with vocals that pretty much demand to be shouted en masse. Whether it’s a new direction for the band or just a fun one-off from the studio sessions, Green/Blue sound absolutely super-charged.