Sacramento duo MIDDLE CLASS RUT seem like they're well-equipped to ride out the recession. After ten years of near misses and miserable music industry scrapes, they've returned bloodied and unbowed as a self-contained hardcore duo with a straight edge-y approach to writing, prodcution and distribution.
If this attitude sounds like it's purloined a leaf or three from Fugazi's refreshing DIY manual, then the similarities don't end there. Although Zack Lopez (guitar/ vocals) and Sean Stockham (drums/ vocals) may be a duo, there's nothing skeletal or remotely White Stripes-y about them. They kick up a dense, brooding hardcore thunder which quite often recalls Ian MacKaye's men. Quite favourably, I should add.
It's most noticeable on the opening title track and third tune 'I Guess You Could Say'. '25 Years' exhibits the kind of tension and torque our Washington DC heroes have long made their own, while Lopez (I assume it's Lopez?) even sings with the same wounded charisma as Guy Picciotto. 'I Guess You Could Say', meanwhile, offers co-hollered sloganeering and extreme urgency and could almost be culled from Fugazi's landmark 'Repeater' album.
Crucially, though, MC Rut are not intent of carrying a one-trick pony's load. 'Dead Set' is looming and oppressive, like a diseased mutation of Sonic Youth circa 'Sister' and Black Sabbath's fantastic early heaviosity. 'All Walks of Life' pits vicious, Glam-punk riffing against Stockham's sizzling hi-hat and Bonham-esque pounding and the impressive closing track 'I Really Don't Know' drifts into cyclical, Jane's Addiction-style psychedelic grooves, a call-and-response vocal workout and a space rock dimension before being reined in for a final epic blowout. It does indeed cement the good initial impression and leaves you feeling just a little drained.
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Middle Class Rut are worth clapping your corroded lobes on. They are committed, visceral and surely born survivors. They will shortly be ripping up UK stages as an entree to the equally incendiary ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead so I would suggest you get there early and feel some of their compelling, righteous anger.
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