Institute
Subordination

THE REVIEW

Finally, an album that requires no interpretation and/or conceptual speculation and aims directly at the old punk and rock and roll heart of the listeners.

Produced by Ben Greenberg (Uniform) and straight from Austin, Texas, here come Institute with this album, 'Subordination', renewing their partnership with a label, NYC's Sacred Bones Records, which never fails to pay attention to bands and record productions that, regardless of the sound, have base characteristics that are signs and manifestations of protest and dissent on all levels.

Institute is a band of very young people led by frontman Moses Brown (other members of the band are: Arak Avakian on guitar; Adam Cahoon on bass; Barry Elkanick on drums), their music is clearly inspired by punk and hard-core experiences that developed in the US between the late eighties and the first half of the nineties, but if we dig deeper it is evident that there are also influences drawn from contemporary musical realities which very often, unlike in this case, present themselves with more noise and experimental content, avant-garde and often elusive.

Here instead, with the declared aim of exploring personal insecurities and at the same time considering them in relation to a presumed failure of American society, Moses Brown, with no intellectual pretension or as a visionary and conceptual artist, writes songs that are something concrete and at the same time almost violent as it rightly should sound like this type of music.

This is why 'Subordination' is, in my opinion, a truly effective album that works well for any type of listener.

Unless you are more interested in things like opera and ballet than rock and roll.

On the other hand, if the band's attitudes are of punk or hard-core origin, it must also be said that some people wanted to find - in the sound - glam and/or even kraut-rock influences (LA Dusseldorf), which are probably there too, but in the end, without mincing words, I would simply speak of rock and roll or garage in the original and more 'dirty' (rightly so) sense of the term and without pretentiousness and fashionable poses like Strokes or Pete Doherty, considering therefore the inspiration of historic bands like the Sonics, the Seeds, the Count Five.

The difference here, compared to these great artists and bands of the past, is that in the specific case of 'Subordination' the quality of the recordings is (most likely) deliberately altered and distorted. Just like Moses Brown's voice. Just like the reality of our days appears to us.

As far as I'm concerned, a great surprise and a true revelation.

Listen to it at maximum volume.