Sisters 's/t' 12" LP

To understand SISTERS, you have to go back to what indie rock used to mean … before blogs, before “Garden State” and commercial licensing deals. Back when most shows were all half-empty, gas cost 97 cents a gallon, and bands that brought the same sort of untethered sweep of lo-fi pop noise like SISTERS were the alternative to the blind, blockbuster megaculture of Aerosmith reunions, Van Hagar bloat and teenybopper MTV habitrails. Theirs is music meant for cassette tapes and long drives, of letter-writing and that thrift store mothball smell in your clothes times when it seemed like the possibilities for the advancement of a good time were truly evident and boundless. Theirs is a sound of reclaimed hopes and dreams, of buzzing amps and anti-postured, rambunctious punk rock flail. Hailing from the easygoing hamlet of Olympia, Washington, SISTERS rolls up its collective sleeves and reaches back – way back, all the way through the ‘90s to the impacted, grotty clog of the mid-80s, and pulls out nine tracks of post-hardcore expression, throttled with distortion and anxiety, truth and beauty. At times they might recall the earliest scrapings of DINOSAUR JR or SONIC YOUTH, as passed through the filter of former Oly heroes like UNWOUND or LYNC. Yet it’s a rare thing that a modern band can play through influence and create their own internal musical dialogue, one which touches on the past but refuses to condemn themselves to slavish tribute. SISTERS is that band. Everybody… is their record, recorded at Dub Narcotic studios and peeling the paint off its candied walls. Nine songs of classic indie rock, deconstructed fully from the notions of privilege and precious demeanor – nine anthems for a despondent mindset, unconcerned with what’s new and instead in search for what’s right.