Dirty Kid Discount – A life Amongst The Ruins

I had heard the name Dirty Kid Discount a number of times over the past year or so but I was first exposed to their music at Punk Rock Bowling a few months ago in Las Vegas where they not only played a packed out show but played on the street for hours at a time and gathered quite a lot of attention from me and other passer byes.

 

Their sound is Punk enough for Punkers and folky enough for folkers with elements of crust and a lot of melody. There are quite a few members in Portland Oregon's Dirty Kid Discount and they all come equipped with many instruments including a washboard, accordion, banjo and my favorite a saw. That's right, A saw, and not only that there's lots of gang vocals and even more catchy dark singalongs that will leave you wishing you started a camp fire and brought your spoons.

After seeing them in Las Vegas, I got in touch with Jay Crash (Screamer, Bass) through a mutual friend and asked him when the record was due out, to my surprise and luck I got the pleasure of hearing it early and had to write a review.

The album is called “A Life Amongst The Ruins” and it's coming out in september through Smelvis Records, Smelvis Records if you haven't heard of it is a label ran by the awesome and talented Elvis Cortez who is responsible for one of Hellcat Record's finest bands Left Alone and who now plays guitar for Transplants. He's a super rad dude and it's no surprise he saw something special in this group because I know I do, and I'm sure you will once you hear this super awesome album.

“A Life Amongst Ruins” is super rad from start to finish, it clocks in at around a half an hour and once it's done you'll want to press play again. The songs are deep and dark and very well written. I really like the collection of voices and sounds and the way these guys incorporate accordions through just about all their songs, every member is really good and every song is very memorable.

I struggled for a few days trying to capture the sound of this record in words, it's difficult because I honestly haven't heard anything quite like it, some tracks remind me of Leftover Crack, while others remind me of Mischief Brew, some parts are slow and drawn out while other parts are fast and sing along, it's like being on a Punk rock haunted hayride, creepy but good creepy, if that makes any sense. The song titles and lyrics are dark and intelligent, and their artwork is awesome, I can't wait to have this record in my collection and see this band get bigger.

Dirty Kid Discount are touring September 12th-October 21st and October 30th-November 1st, so make sure to hit their facebook page and check their dates out, they also have a site on Reverb Nation and a bandcamp.

 

 

-Brian McCann Jr-
Big Wheel Contributor
 

 

 

 

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