The myth of Prometheus is statist, militaristic hogwash. Prometheus was a punk and, knowing what man does with anything that can burn, sure as shit didn’t steal fire. He stole something far more valuable; d-beat, the stripped down, sloganeering, fast and noisy essence of punk music, and gifted it upon all who gathered at the foot of the mountain, so that the purest and most incorruptible of hardcore subgenres could proliferate help push humanity to its anarcho-utopian ideal. Maybe there were some hiccups along the way but at least he wasn’t punished either. Prometheus bought a nice shoelace, tied it around his forehead, and moved to Olympia, Washington. He’s totally fine! Has a cool bike.

This is all perhaps a small amount of supposition on my part, but when a band, even one as discordantly majestic as Physique, declines to be interviewed and provides a bio scant on details, one is forced to fill in the blank pages. So working with the information at hand, this theory is as good as any. I can tell you that Physique formed in 2016 and the current line up is Bee, Riley Chaos, Fucker, and Jake and the band is made up in part by ex-members of the greatly missed street-punk ruffians, G.L.O.S.S.—who also like those who fell at Thermopylae, opted to self-immolate rather than sign to Epitaph.

What is also known about Physique is that they, in the parlance of the kids, totally rip. Physique engage in irreproachable Discharge worship, keeping affairs as short and sharp as a switchblade through a dove. Often in cases such as this, the weak are mandated to say that a given music is “made new with punk energy” or some such conciliatory pablum. But Physique are making nothing new, because “new” is a bourgeois conceit when your chief concern is anthemic destruction of all oppressive systems. The sole statement that band makes is that they make raw noise “to fight the nightmarish reality of inept politicians, land stolen from indigenous peoples, gender struggles, genetic manipulations, Jesus useless Christ and impending nuclear war that we all live in.” No need for “new” pens or “new” swords either. Plug in, wear black, ride the snare, kick, and crash until all the statues are torn down and in their graves, ready to be pissed on, baby.

The name of Physique’s debut album, on fellow Olympia aesthetes Iron Lung Records (whose slogan is “We know what We like and what We don’t like”), is called Punk Life Is Shit. The record comes out March 30 and Physique will be touring the west coast US in March/April 2018. Buy the album and go see them on tour or die a cop.

Physique tour dates: