Bug Day – Six-Legs Inexperience
Rochester’s Bug Day has unofficially entered the album arena with Six-Legs Inexperience, a unique debut that landed earlier this month. The record sees the noise rock group expanding on the intriguing avant-garde leanings of last year’s UFOs by the Lake EP, now lacing their sound with a sharper post-punk edge. It’s an interesting release, structured more like an EP-and-a-half, with six original pieces paving the way for three distinctive cover tunes that tip the band’s proverbial hat to a fairly diverse range of influences. Six-Legs Inexperience is our album of the week.
One of the most striking qualities of the new album is Bug Day’s ability to shift dynamics on a dime. The band navigates changes in intensity with an almost deceptive ease, often within the confines of a single song. “The Best Excuse” showcases this early in the tracklist, patiently drawing listeners in with a slow burn before unleashing a cathartic punk rock broadside at the last minute. This penchant for the dramatic is equally apparent in “Not What it’s For,” which masterfully juxtaposes its initial quiet, melodic interplay of guitar and bass with a subsequent immense wave of distortion and barrage of drum hits that could smash through a sheet of drywall. Even in their more abstract explorations, such as the artful, largely instrumental “The Observation Tower”–a piece that would resonate with Sonic Youth fans–or the chaotic, minute-long instrumental overture “Buddhafrog,” there’s a palpable intentionality to their arrangements that proves the band can be as captivating in their exploratory wanderings as they are with their direct, forceful statements.
This dynamic prowess is achieved, in no small part, through their skillful fusion of genres. Bug Day confidently stirs together the abrasive textures of noise rock, the insistent drive of post-punk, and the invigorating touches of free-jazz abandon. This stylistic melding is immediately apparent on the cutting opener “Buddhafrog,” an exhilarating collision of raw punk energy and improvisational freedom. “Cockroach Kid” is a clear highlight, offering riff-driven, angular post-punk that conjures early Preoccupations; it’s perhaps the most direct cut here and also lends its lyrics to the album’s title: “Don’t talk to Cockroach Kid / Six-legs inexperience / I’m getting used to this.” The song’s closing moments achieve a goosebump-inducing intensity that brings to mind the climactic build-ups in early Interpol tracks.
The trio of covers that clinch the release feel like an organic extension of the album’s own narrative. Bug Day’s rendition of “Falling” by fellow Rochester mainstays The Chinchillas, transforms the alt-country original into a denser, more abrasive entity, serving as both a respectful nod and a bold sonic reinvention. Their ambitious take on Albert Ayler’s 1967 jazz composition “Ghosts” is a thrilling excursion into their artier side, preserving the original’s explosive core while steering it into more discordant, sprawling territory–a venture on which they cheekily concede to getting “a bit carried away” in the liner notes. The album then closes with a powerful version of Guided By Voices‘ “Tractor Rape Chain,” which, while staying largely faithful to the indie rock classic’s original vibe, is injected with an extra dose of snarl and a more formidable drum presence, providing a perfectly energetic send-off.
What Six-Legs leaves you with is the exhilarating hum of a band firing on all creative cylinders. There’s a clear vision here, and it’s executed with style, the unconventional album format notwithstanding. The album’s journey through noisy, engaging originals and inspired covers feels both unified and excitingly unpredictable, and that’s an impressive space to occupy for a band’s first substantial release. The album is available for purchase here, and be sure to catch them live at the Rec Room on June 7th when Bug Day brings their calculated chaos to our own doorstep.
Categorised in: Album of the Week
This post was written by Ronald Walczyk