The Peasants

Love Your Enemy
by Scott Hefflon

Living in Boston, I’ve heard and seen the name The Peasants for years, never realizing that the rest of the country fawned over The Get Up Kids and then My Chemical Romance without ever discovering The Peasants. Morons. So yeah, part noisy college rock like Local H (look it up if you were still listening to N’Sync in the mid-’90s when “alternative rock” was still noisy and ROCK, not formulaic mainstream pop for poserboys and teenage girls who like moody photoshoots more than well-written songs) and part punky rock, guitar solos and “I need a goddamn job!” hollers over Sex Pistols swagger. If more unsigned bands were this good, maybe I’d consider seeing a local band less painful than seeing the dentist.

Love Your Enemy opens less “fun and catchy” than Welcome to My Country or Out on the Streets, but frustration with U.S. politics isn’t exactly a funny topic, ya know? But “Day Job” and “I Never Said” lighten up, the latter being a trippy Beastlesesque dirge where Jesus tells people how badly they’ve misquoted him, and done ignorant, hateful things “in his name.” And from there, Love Your Enemy gets back on track, quipping about sweet Asian ass, and “Less and Less” is one of those lighter-waiving, simple but touching tunes the Brits seem to’ve perfected. “Black Coffee and Cigarettes” and “At The Wedding” each shuffle quickly about the dance floor, jacked-up and giddy, each overflowing with fun lyrics and guitarwork that’ll make the kids realize most current guitarists are lazy pieces of shit, posers who’d be relegated to “rhythm guitarist” if they could even land a gig back in the day of guitar rock. “At The Wedding” duck-walks the fretboard like Brian Setzer, the kinda stuff ya just don’t hear anymore. So three or four real gems here, the rest nicely listenable, each song notably different from the others, and far from the simplified crap on the radio these days.
(www.thepeasants.net)