With the 2014 release of Midnight Passenger and its follow-up Cigarette Machine EP, Memphis, TN-based punk band Ex-Cult emerged into the national scene while becoming a JOVM mainstay artist for a raw, angry, bruising sound. And although a little bit of time has passed since we’ve heard from them, August 12, 2016 will mark the release of the “Summer of Fear”/”1906” 7 inch through Famous Class Records.
A couple of months ago, I wrote about “1906, ” a tense and furious cover of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s “1906”and as the band’s frontman Chris Shaw explained to the folks at Stereogum: “The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band have an amazing catalog of California psych/folk rock, but’1906′ has this downer, post-apocalyptic vibe that none of other songs come close to duplicating. The lyrics match some of the negative vibes we channel and the guitar stabs on ‘1906’ are a lot like some of the riffs we crank out on our own. It seemed like a natural fit.”
Famous Class Records along with the band have released the A side single “Summer of Fear,” is a anxious and tense song consisting of abrasive and angular guitar stabs, off-kilter syncopation and Chris Shaw’s punchy shouts in a song that much like “1906,” will further cement the Memphis-based punk act’s growing reputation for angrily caustic, bilious punk rock that’s raw, primal and bruising while evoking the tense, fucked up times we live in.
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