Swedish surfers unite! Masshysteri is a Dick Dale/Ventures-worship three-piece transported from the 1960s California coast, cross-bred with the Wipers and Black Flag, then bomb-dropped onto modern day Umea, Sweden. Their mission is simple: to blast reverb-drenched guitar lines and dueling male/female vocals that douse you in the face like a freezing cold Swedish 15-footer. This intricate garage punk/surf attack will make your knees shake and your head bang, with more style and ‘tude than you can shake a shortboard at.
Risen from the still-warm ashes of Umea’s The Vicious, and featuring female backup vocals from the ex-singer of Copenhagen’s Gorilla Angreb, Masshysteri has got the musical chops of any classic surf band, a harmonic sense that most of their peers would kill for, and a hard-hitting approach that you can actually pogo to (finally, a band that can use the ‘verb effect without turning every song into a shoegazy, Jesus and Mary Chain-ripoff wuss-fest.) This is real, D.I.Y. punk rock that’s got both intensity and some serious brains. The chugging double-guitar downstrokes come on strong and never let up, the drums have speed and punch, and there’s intricate bass-noodling aplenty.
The vocals here are a definite highlight: they move from crooning and melodic (impressively so in songs like “Liv Och Dod”), to shrieking and abrasive freakouts that might remind certain listeners of the early Kathleen Hanna catalog. Not to mention, this particular female vocalist provides some much-needed eye candy for those of us cursed to frequent the sweaty sausage-fests of punk rock.
Masshysteri
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