Paper Cuts

There’s something strange in the air – a grimy, whisky-spattered haze that descends over big cities once every generation or so, whiffing strongly of malcontent and youthful uprising. Kids, bored with their day jobs and the inherent stagnation of corporate rock music, are starting to pick up guitars or circulate fanzines to get their voices heard. The dam constructed by the major labels in the mid-90s is, ever-so-slightly, beginning to crumble…

Paper Cuts’ yeller in chief, Ross Cummins, learnt first-hand the price for trying to rock the industry boat. As part of Britrock’s most compelling cannon in teenage pop-metallers Symposium, Cummins received mass acclaim for his band’s riotous live performances, only to face the mother of all backlashes for the heinous crime of failing to recapture that energy on record. When Symposium imploded under the weight of their own distortion pedals, an entire scene soon followed suit.

Where two of his former bandmates found their feet in post-hardcore tykes Hell Is For Heroes, Cummins’ new band offers up a far dirtier, more scuffed-up brand of punk rock. From the opening chords of 9-to-5 basher ‘Business Suit Disease’, Paper Cuts spend twenty-five minutes laying waste to society’s smiling facade in gleefully caustic fashion. It’s rock music, Scottie, but not as we’ve heard it – at least for a good decade or so.

We’re talking mighty eardrum damage here. There’s echoes of early Mudhoney, Sabbath, even Huggy Bear in the head-crunching riffs and proto-punk shout-a-long vocals on offer. It would be impossible to tear your eyes away from guitarist Ben Thornton and his deviant grin, were it not for their singer tearing up the stage whilst clambering onto whatever objects (or people) get in the way.

There’s an honesty to all great music; something inexplicable, yet ultimately vital. It’s a rarity to catch a glimpse of it these days, and right now we need all the truth we can get our hands on. Paper Cuts understand this – they are a finger in the eye of mainstream mediocrity and, thus, are genius.