THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Hailing from Denver, Quits‘ members have done time in countless highly regarded underground acts over the past few decades. On their new full-length Feeling It, they offer a unique take on what might lazily be described as noise-rock or post-hardcore, but is in fact so much more. The guitars and vocals are ferocious without seeming dull or phoned-in, and the rhythm section swings hard while keeping things locked in tight. It is not comforting. Your skin will crawl and your skull will ache.
Guitarist/vocalist Lucius Fairchild says the new album is about trying to find one’s center in the wake of the pandemic, covering such topics as “police misconduct, mass shootings, addiction, isolation.” He describes the current state of his hometown, where runaway gentrification and abject poverty are colliding: “We adapt. It’s expensive. It’s no longer strange to see eight cranes on one street. Development has not slowed down. The homeless crisis is also booming. Watching people walk through the tent city on their block to enter their $5,000 apartment. The contrast is interesting.”
Quits play like a band that have been through it all and feel like a band that come from somewhere else. They evince a palpable danger, held firmly within a sound devoid of the stale corniness that listeners have been choked by for far too long. They ooze desperation and urgency without tough-guy posturing. It is loud because it needs to be, not because you want it to be.
Their sound has earned comparison to groups like Drive Like Jehu, Metz and Dischord cult heroes Circus Lupus. One might also hear echoes of classic rosters from the Gravity, AmRep, Touch and Go, Vermiform and Skin Graft camps. But this is no nostalgia act; the music Quits strangle out of their instruments feels very now, hyper-aware of what has come before and why it need not be repeated, and seemingly intent on blowing it all to pieces and rebuilding it… leaner, meaner, smarter.
As displayed on their latest focus track Abandoned Myths, Quits‘ sound dances on a knife-edge between anxious twang and epic wallop. Desperate vocals bear a resemblance to the wails of Justin Pearson or Chris Thomson, while duelling guitars, distorted bass, and scrappy drumming push the intensity into the red. The passion is palpable.
While some lineup changes have occurred in the turbulence of recent years — bassist Neil Keener (Planes Mistaken for Stars, Wovenhand) was replaced by Cyrena Rosati, who was then replaced by Justin Ankenbauer — 2023 finds Quits to be thriving. In the face of tough circumstances, they stands as a pillar of Denver’s scene, alongside other mile-high artists such as Endless, Nameless and Moon Pussy, and the band has just delivered its greatest work so far, in the form of Feeling It.”
