It’s 2023, and even the turn of this new century seems a long time ago now — but oddly, Purling Hiss’s guitar-band ethos feels ever more timeless, even as time accelerates and passes us and them (and decades of the mighty rock and roll) in the outside lane. Drag On Girard, the first full length Purling Hiss album in six years, cruises through diverse states of mind and places in time — dreams from the past and the future, careening lawlessly as they slide around loose on the road with crushed guitar harmonics, fused with anthemic melody and choruses.
As before, but with new twists, Mike Polizze and his gang let loose with the chaos and noise implied by their name, applying high end splatter and slow rolling low end to eight vehicles, running the gamut from gleaming pop gems to head-cleaning epic jams before they’re done. This time out, the colliding circles of time seem to have inspired both the songs and the band, and the sentiment-drenched mood explodes in a wild tangle of guitars that seem constantly about to overwhelm the room.
“Yer All In My Dreams” marries pop melodies to psyche-delicate expressions, emitting the expected formidable roar while setting a certain type of rhythmic strut for the band. A literal wall of distortion in your ears is prelude, as ever, to the heartening crunch of connection once Mike Polizze slides into his lead licks, and their warm reality lights the room. A sweet tune somehow more loosely chaotic and yet more monolithic and streamlined than preceding Hissongs.
Can’t seem to go home again? Purling Hiss pull it off on Drag On Girard, finding the invisible places in our shared perspective where it still exists to this very moment. Out on LP and CD on March 24th!
