THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Crack is radical reduction — for this second album, Berlin band Sex Beat stripped away all differences and embellishments, recording in their rehearsal space to craft punk album that needs no further genre labels. DIY isn’t a gimmick here but an unavoidable necessity — Crack was made without a studio, without a producer, and without a clue.
Sex Beat approach punk with historical awareness, drawing from a wide range of influences — Oblivians, Suicide, Hot Snakes and more. Sonically, they take cues from the ’90s Dischord Records catalog: Bass and drums drive forward, while guitar and vocals spit and snarl. The songs shift between being heavily fragmented and mechanical to intricately crafted, but they remain raw and unfiltered.
Lyrically, it’s all about what grinds your gears: Broken politics, broken society, and all the little broken things within ourselves. References range from Gordon Solie Motherf**kers (“Give them a dirty floor for a stage / A five-buck show and I’m stoked for days”) to George Orwell (“Four legs good, two legs bad”). And in the end, even Grammy winner Beck gets a nod, because overarching it all is: “You make me wanna try crack.”
