EPHS Frayed Flag cassette
Primitive econo-punk from a Pennsylvanian home recording project that has clearly spent some time trawling for scraps in the adjoining junkyards of Messthetics and KBD—the trifecta of cover songs included here (the PRATS’ “Disco Pope,” “Teenagers” from Fred and Toody Cole’s RATS, and “Living on Nerve Ends” by CLEANERS FROM VENUS) is telling. Spartan as hell, with treble-heavy guitar done early MEKONS/BILLY CHILDISH-style, drums that exist somewhere along the continuum of “cardboard box” to “trash can,” but often just sound like (and might be?) one continuously bashed tambourine, and understated bass that actually does most of the work of keeping these eighteen(!) tracks steady on the rails. Alternate mixes of the last six tracks on Frayed Flag were originally released on a cassette called No Riots from 2018, a period in time where there was no shortage of shambling, dole-line post-punk fetishization from modern upstarts, whether it was the SUBURBAN HOMES stripping the likes of the DESPERATE BICYCLES and SWELL MAPS for parts, or PRIVATE SECTOR generating their own blown-out photocopy of “Disco Pope.” The big difference is that those bands were all UK-based and sounded the part, while EPHS is unmistakably American—the blunt, barked vocals in tracks like “No Way” and “Pointless Machine” are firmly rooted in late ’70s/early ’80s US punk (Dangerhouse, et al), with the ragged, speedy crash of “Mr. E.G.O.” and “Subdivision” working an almost URINALS-ish angle. Not too shabby (beyond the obvious).