Album Stream Debut: Fashion Week – Prêt-à-Porter

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I’m the kind of person who judges a band based on their name, their song titles, look of their logo or their album art. That may be unfair, but that’s just the way it is. Sometimes I’m wrong, and sometimes it takes me a while to figure that out. But when I realize I’m wrong, the satisfaction of enjoying the music is often much greater than if I had not been choosy in the first place.

If you’re like me, you probably wouldn’t give Fashion Week a chance. First, maybe you’d think it was actually Death Grips. Second, the name. Third, the name. Fourth, song titles like “Fendi Bender” and “Haute Topic” don’t seem like songs I want to listen to. I found the band’s name on a spoof of the Nevermind cover with a manatee instead of a baby. I’m thinking . . . Pass.

Harsh? Yeah. Unfair? Yeah. Was I wrong? Yeah.

Brooklynites know all about this band, who play regularly in that town’s heavy music scene. But the rest of us might need a nudge to check them out. Here’s that nudge for you. Fashion Week members Josh Lozano (Inswarm, Jarboe), Carl Eklof (Inswarm, Lidia Stone, Victory at Sea), Oscar Albis Rodriguez (No Way, Nakatomi Plaza) are currently on tour promoting this album, Prêt-à-Porter that’s streaming in its entirety below. Prêt-à-Porter is set to drop on February 23 on Solar Flare Records.

If you like Steve Albini-style angularity and strange spoken word soliloquies, stark noise rock and ’90s-style Am Rep abrasiveness like Hammerhead, you will love this band. The tongue-in-cheek titles are just a bit of a curveball that they throw into otherwise jagged aggression.

This album was engineered by Andrew Schneider (Cave In, Unsane, East Of The Wall), and jams 8 tracks into less than a half hour. Trust me, it’s not a bad way to spend 30 minutes of your life.

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