Carsex paint a blood-red portrait of a sick society with their fiercely aggressive new single and video Crooked Canvas — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The Long Beach underground punk-rockers come out swinging like a jacked-up heavyweight on their latest release, slamming you right between the eyes with a supercharged sound that is every bit as sleazy, primitive, uncomfortable and cathartic as their name implies. But it isn’t all nasty fun and games. At its hard-pumping heart, Crooked Canvas is a stiletto-pointed diatribe against blind consumerism and uninformed fealty to political parties and religion.
It starts out with a spoken-word warning, underlined by a clanging guitar riff that builds alongside a rolling snare — before exploding into a supersonic blast that propels singer Nigel Burk’s uncompromising, full-throated takedown of a world built upon lies and greed. And whatever is being sold to the rest of the sheeple, he isn’t buying it:
“All the lies that we’ve been told were so wrong, so wrong
But you’re on your soapbox screaming your song…
I’m seeing red
All I see is red
Eat what you’ve been fed
I’m seeing red.”
“Crooked Canvas is about the metaphorical wool being pulled over people’s eyes and the blind, general consumption of what’s being put forth,” explains Burk. “Whether it’s politics, religion, what shoes to buy, which pill will make your dick bigger. It’s about consumerism at its finest and my distaste for it.”
Crooked Canvas was produced by Steve Evetts (Sepultura, Dillinger Escape Plan), and comes accompanied by a high-energy performance-style video that captures the band in action. Bassist Jeremy Schott says: “The music video was shot by our pals Brad Walther and Jason Lazo at Big Walrus Productions in Long Beach. We worked with them on our last video for Your Generation. We shot the video on a church set, keeping with the theme of the song being about the public being told how to think and what to consume — and blindly doing so. Steven Burhoe of Plague Productions edited the video.”
Forged by the survivors of Orange County bands like Damned Age, Black Velvet Brigade and Red River Massacre, Carsex formed in 2018. Their sound combines the vintage L.A. punk attack of Circle Jerks / Black Flag / Germs with echoes of Danzig, Fu Manchu and even Queens Of The Stone Age, resulting in a potent, destructive concoction. They play hard and loud with no hint of an apology.
They have released two EPs: 2019’s CarSex and 2020’s 2020 EP, which featured the singles Your Generation and Lovesick. A new EP is being finalized and will be released later this summer. But at heart, Carsex are very much a live band. They’ve opened for Fieldy’s Stillwell, The Obsessed, Mondo Generator, Suicide Silence, Unsane, Dead Poet’s Society, Narcoleptic Youth and O’Zorn!, among others. Now they’re ready to open your eyes.
Watch the video for Crooked Canvas above, hear more from Carsex below, and ride along on their website, Facebook and Instagram.
