Providence has been home to many greats of avant-garde and punk music for a long time now, and it is our pleasure to present you the newest addition to the scene, SULLEST, featuring members of WEAK TEETH, GOOD LORD, BLOODPHEASANT and MATH THE BAND. “Fashionable Male” manages to pour so much energy into just 5 tracks of noisy, gritty, 90s inspired and rock tinged punk that your ears will need to take a couple of minutes to cool down after the first listen. Channeling some serious TORCHE and FLOOR worship, the record runs harmonies through walls of dissonance-laced riffs and achieves magnetism instantly. We have teamed up with the band to give you thee full stream of the EP, along with their vocalist’s first-hand commentary on each track below!
Sullest is a 4-piece punk band from Providence, RI. Sonically, their influences are worn on their sleeve. The guitar work and vocal harmonies pay homage to bands like Torche and Floor while some parts lock into more droney 90s alt rock feel a la Hum.
Members of Sullest have spent time in many Providence-based projects including: weakteeth, Math the Band, Good Lord, and Bloodpheasant. When all of their projects seemed to be slowing down, Pagano approached guitarist Ashley Anderson (Good Lord) to help flesh out some riffs he had written. Eventually adding drummer Neil King (Bloodpheasant, Math the Band) and bassist Jon Pagano (weak teeth), the band was ready to enter the studio and record their debut.
Fashionable Male is five tracks full of introspection and nostalgia spun around dueling guitar leads, rich vocal harmonies, and precision drumming. It was engineered and mixed by Jared Mann at Distorted Forest and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air. It is being released on cassette, as a split release through Tor Johnson Records and the Squid Amps Collective.
Robinette:
Jon, Neil, and I all played music together for the first time at a performing arts camp and the name of the cabin where we formed our first band was ‘Robinette.’ “Play from the Soul” was a quote painted on the inside of one of the practice spaces at camp and it became somewhat of a motto i carried with me in music going forward from there.
Lyrics:
What we found inside became so much more, more than you or I or an identity. We found a voice authentic, on shaking legs, learning to stand. We found a voice authentic, work project hands learning to wear. No glitter, all gold. Our anthem, control. Play from the soul.
All my shit’s at TJ’s
AMSATJ’s is about an annual “trip” i take to get away from the city and go out to the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Since I was 16 I have been going out there for a weekend of doing nothing but going to the beach, looking like an alien and consuming too much of every substance known to man. It is the American dream in action.
Lyrics:
If I swim out far enough, float away from everything; from the brick walls and concrete, where the tide breathes me in where the sun makes you feel alive, and dries the salt on your skin. When the island goes quiet, swallowed up by the dark, we’re still out chasing the sun, till it rises back up. No idea what direction, I feel 16 again. Paranoid introspection, rolling me out, breathing me back in.
I Never Know What’s Going On:
Growing up in Providence my neighborhood was very close to a lot of old warehouse buildings where a lot of practice spaces were. I can remember riding my bike around and hearing the sounds of bands playing. Later on in life, the same warehouse I used to peek into became the home of my first practice space; Squid Amps. We were there for eight years, but the space existed for over ten. It was home to so many bands and shows over the years. We recently lost Squid Amps and this is kind of my love letter to the first place I got to call home as an artist.
Lyrics:
I can hear the sounds, the echo down the street and I can hear them playing, but it feels so out of reach and in that building there’s a light on
It’s not abandoned or a place you know. We were both what no one wanted, you still let me call you home. I’ve never felt accepted in the place where I’m grown. You gave to me the first place I considered my own.
You can knock us down and kick us out. But you can erase the impact of a memory because there will always be a light on.
Screamer of the Week:
My brothers were much older than me, so when I was young I did most of my learning about music through the radio. Lucky for me, I was fortunate enough to get to listen to one of the best independent “college” radio stations in the country; 95.5 WBRU. They played a lot of local and lesser known music, so it was a cool way to get exposed to new music and learn about what was happening locally. Every Friday was a countdown of the 10 most requested songs of the week. The ‘fan favorite’ each week was called the “Screamer of the Week.” WBRU also shut down their signal this year, so again, this was kind of a swan song for something that gave me so much.
Lyrics:
Broadcast the anthems they’ve sung down Thayer or in any Olneyville clubs. Teach me the words on their tongues. I don’t get it but I’m listening now, getting closer. You can’t see me but I’m listening now and I can feel it. I don’t get it but I’m listening now, getting closer. I can’t go but here in my room, I can listen.
Susquehanna:
My uncle worked for a radio station like thirty years ago. He was an engineer and his job in particular was maintaining radio towers in Pennsylvania. This song is about him telling his wife what his day was like and how he wished she could see what he got to see. It isn’t based on an actual conversation, just a mix of thing I heard him say about what his job was like and some of his ability to succinctly explain things. I spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania and always loved the mountains that roll through York county. So this was in part a nod to someone I respect and to a place very close to my heart. There is a theme here if you look real close lol.
Lyrics:
WBSA, Do you read? This is Susquehanna Broadcasting 223.
Come in WBSA, do you read? This is Susquehanna Broadcasting tower frequency. From all the way up here, I can feel the air and watch the Blue Ridge and Appalachian lines disappear. I can feel it in the air, a thousand miles of rolling hillside. Wish you could see it there, across a thousand valleys.
