The Taxpayers’ New Album Out On Saturday!

Ok, it’s punk, BUT… combining the hostile aesthetics of the genre and the erratic vibes of free-jazz instrumentals with a thoroughly thought through production, Portland’s DIY specialists The Taxpayers truly are a tight act in disguise. Beginning as your standard “guitar, bass and drums” trio back in 2007, they would sporadically superpose onto their riffs some finger picking blues lines which were, looking back, the early stages of versatile sonic ventures to come.

Today, as the band has grown a few heads larger, recording with a banjo, sax, piano, horn, trumpet and accordion, The Taxpayers’ sound has further developed its skilfully confused signature, most present on the last full-length album “To Risk So Much For One Damn Meal”; yet as much as that record light-heartedly talked us through tales of a contemporary struggle, the teaser track and cover art of forthcoming “God, Forgive These Bastards” (dedicated to the memory of baseball pitcher Henry Turner) announce much darker and more deranged a colour.

Judging by the opening brass spits, those few already drawn away by the apparent lack of structure of earlier releases might as well stand back, while we amateurs of distorted frenzies welcome with excitement the new album, out this Saturday, June 23rd. Oh, and there will be a book too! – Tracy Mamoun