Mass Solo Revolt

MSR mines the past for the best of the minor keys, bass lines, and angular drums that strike sympatico in your memory, then blends them with an intricacy that is as unexpected as a sucker punch to an old sweet wound. Not as much raised by, as catapulted from, the best of Fugazi, Superchunk and J Mascis, Mass Solo Revolt has taken a blueprint drawn years ago and built a sonic empire with it's own unique laws, the first being this: without fail, you must always, always pay attention. Seven years ago, a self released record of MSR’s caught the ear of Fugazi frontman Ian Mackaye, a circumstance that led frontman Martin Brummeler into the Inner Ear studios to record in that hallowed space. Born of this fertile playground was the 2005 release Easy Mark, an auditorily addictive collaboration with Chad Clark.
Easy Mark was lauded by fans and critics alike, cited by NPR as “harnessing those raw sounds from the early '90s to create a less polished, yet still infectious, throwback indie rock sound.”, and as pulling off “a modern rock coup…an album that at once displays influences proudly while still coming off as totally original and utterly contemporary” by The All Music Guide.
The 2009 release of Bend In Time changed the landscape painted in Easy Mark, taking the brash hooks and lyrics and exposed angst deeper…darker. With the deeply expressive guitar work and deft twists and turns that are a trademark, Bend In Time delves artfully into dark recesses, giving frustration and hope and the stretches in between a soundtrack to get lost in. Americana UK describes the record as “keeping everything tightly controlled and visceral. Brummeler is leading MSR down their own gloriously ambiguous, thrillingly noisy path”
This noted ambiguity will be best illustrated with the upcoming release Soft Power which emerges this spring. While the musical DNA remains intact, this record ushers MSR out of the chrysalis a far different specimen than it went in. Dynamic as always, but also thoughtful and unexpectedly vulnerable by turns, Brummeler has created yet another superhighway for his unique thought process. This record reeks of freedom and abandon and certainty, and occasionally a new essence altogether: peace.
The very best music challenges you. It questions. It invites.When you are helpless to do anything but try and somehow get inside what you are hearing, you know that something important is happening.Whether traveling through the conduit of Martin Brummeler as a solo contributor, or as a 4 piece, Mass Solo Revolt’s music is raw energy. Sometimes the tension of a life about to explode, others, beauty glowering with the power to obliterate, there is something about the yearning and honesty of this music that comes through like pure grain alcohol.
Not every band can accomplish the elusive thing that MSR constantly delivers. Receiving transmitted emotion until it becomes a palpable feeling is a workout, but if you have the will to join the empire, to obey the cardinal rule:“Pay fucking attention”, the payoffs are multidimensional.
Then suddenly, music as mere entertainment seems to be the most superficial artifice there is.