Search - Drowningman :: How They Light Cigarettes in Prison

Burlington, Vermont might not be known as a hot spot for hardcore. Socialist mayors, monsters in nearby Lake Champlain, Phish, and filthy hippies maybe- but definitely not hardcore. Be that as it may, over the last several years, the aggressive music world has been waking up to Vermont's dirty little secret and most recent addition to the Revelation Records family, Drowningman. Not particularly proud of their backwoods heritage, Drowningman has been content in the common misconception that they were from Boston created by their handful of releases on Hydrahead Records. With each successive release, from 1997's debut 7" Weighted and Weighed Down, to 1998's Busy Signal At The Suicide Hotline LP, and 1999's incendiary split 7" with New Jersey's Dillinger Escape Plan, the band has expanded the parameters of their caustic blend of spastic metal/hardcore blasts and emotional, melodic interludes, and in turn put themselves, and maybe someday their home state, on the hardcore map. With the release of How They Light Cigarettes In Prison (their debut record for Revelation, produced by Brian McTernan, layout by Jake Bannon), the Drowningman gospel is sure to be increasingly spread and their secret identities doubly unsafe back home in VT. Drowningman is preparing for the eventuality that they will be forced to flee their vocations as game wardens, bait diggers and gas station attendants in what will be a schedule of constant touring once the ice breaks in spring time. Besides exhibiting a finely tuned sense of songwriting that usually escapes many modern, math-oriented hardcore bands, How They Light Cigarettes in Prison positively drips with the dark sarcasm hinted at on earlier Drowningman releases. Tales of heartbreak and woe, challenges to close-quarters combat, ruminations on half-developed paranoid delusions and carefully laid plans for revenge and armed heists- all set to music. If you've followed Drowningman's series of musical maturations from release to release you may still not have expected this newest 4-song collection of auditory mean-spiritedness. If you're a newcomer to Drowningman's world they pray for you and yours and hope you look forward to being surprised and scared by whatever those guys have in store for their first Revelation full-length for Revelation, coming this summer.