Press Lists

Press Interviews

Press for Time Attack

"Everything about this record screams more. More confidence, more experience, more ideas and more volume. Time Attack is a ragged, angular post-punk rager. It’s a pogo-powered new-wave revivalist soundtrack. It’s a dual-vocaled alarm clock that will get your ass motivated as soon as it hits your ears." - Em P Me - mp3 Blog

"While many of their post-punk peers tend to sound like they’re stuck on repeat after a few songs, New Black work within their sound to find new dynamics. The epic “Devil in my Car” carries a haunting, almost creepy style, making it one of the more provocative songs here. “Red Bandit,” alternately, is seeped in clawing-at-the-walls freneticism with its intensely rabid, beating rhythms. With duelling male/female vocals and desperately fast and frantic spasms, Time Attack is an album that can stand its ground on and off the dance floor." - Exclaim! Magazine

"This is fierce, yet slightly-sweet urban-hipster music that is very much soaked in the new Chicago sound." - SLUG Magazine

"Combining some of the wilder elements of 1970s punk and 1980s new wave with a hard modern jolt of intense technology, the folks in New Black play odd rock music that assaults the listener while remaining decidedly danceable." - Baby Sue

The first review of Time Attack comes to us from Fiona, age 9, of Hot Springs, AR:

"It makes me wanna do my dancing. Of course, I always wanna dance. I like dancing to it, and if I like dancing to it, it's good for dancing . . . for me anyway. Some people like dancing to Beethoven, I guess--I like dancing to this."

Track #10: "This is like spy music."

Track #9: "This is disaster music. Like when somebody's having a great big party, and they make a big mess."

Fiona freewrite: "Spies dancing reapeating [sic] a big house and a small town piano what else can I do? Time attacks wish lists devils' cars screaming microphones corners sounds motorcicles [sic] Scooby doo 2 Jungle and/or rainforest people".

Press for New Black S/T

One of the first albums this year to move my feet in that dancing way (not pretty). They breezed through London in April and were utterly captivating live. We could have chosen any track from this album, especially one that featured more prominently the talented ladies that also make up the group, but this one (Hot Box) just sounds so dirty and teenage, I feel like I need to wash my hands just thinking about it. And that;s not a bad thing... I swear if you loved early Pretty Girls Make Graves this is for you. Male / female dual lead vocals ride over music that cruise spit and attitude. Think B-52's having wild sex with Q and not U. This deserves attention. Thanks Thick. - Rough Trade Shops

As odd as this may be, this eponymously titled debut is perhaps the most meticulously laid out punk rock and chaotically thrashing new wave album one's likely to hear. As easy as it would be to attribute this solely to the eerily defined keyboards of Rachel Shindelman, the sultry vocals of guitarist Patti Gran, or the ferociously nasal roars of bassist Liam Kimball, it's their talents combined (with those of drummer Nick Kraska) that really earn them their name. - Venus Zine, Summer 2004

A thoughtful take on frenetic and wiry art-punk with a pop-punk backbone and a new wave feel. Typical punk mechanics are hardwired with cosmic keyboard lines and luscious bass rhythms-a great balance of loud and angry searing punk and calming, dancey groovees, from the Rapture-esque dance track "RobotoboR" to the pop-punk-meshed-with-New Wave-licks "Hot Box" to the minimally rhythmic "Twisted Lips." - Punk Planet, May 2004

This band is so good they make my teeth hurt.
Roctober #38

Despite Patti Gran's 1950 s American housewife frock and guitar that appears roughly the same size as her, it doesn't take long for the first of many eardrum-busting howls to be unleashed. You'd say that this effortlessly propels their material above the wallowing self-indulgent quality of their equally discordant peers, only it still sounds like they're wringing every ounce of conviction out of their Cursive-Meets-Breeders formula to get to where they are on a night when they could've been forgiven for taking it easy. - Kerrang!, May 8, 2004 - (live show review) 93 Feet East, London/21.04.04

Co-gendered art-punk quartet New Black aren't exactly the second coming of the B-52s, but they're pretty damn close…."Last Wave"'s horror-film keyboards are both ironic and erudite, a syrupy amalgamation of The Munsters and Klymaxxx, while the brilliantly-titled "Booze Olympics" stomps around like a six-year-old who's just been told he can't have anymore cotton candy. - Splendid Ezine, April 30, 2004

The bottom line is, New Black manages to take grungy guitar riffs and strange keyboard sounds and make them sound great together. - Outburn Magazine, May 2004

"Everybody" has been saying it and, for once, "everybody" is right: take some Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Pixies, Q and not U, add party animals the B-52s and some other 80s new-wave and you get New Black. Abrasive vocals from both XY and XX chromosome carriers snake around, taunting and challenging the guitars and drums to keep up. - Delusions of Adequacy, May, 2004

"Everybody knows now," sings Patti Gran on New Black's debut effort. With an album like this, pretty soon everyone will.

There are always these exceptional discs that come out of nowhere to catch a person's attention, hidden gems that escape the hype and fall conspicuously under the radar. New Black's self-titled full length on Thick Records is just that; an out-of-nowhere reminder that garage rock doesn't have to be bland and inanely predictable. - Some Day Never, rest of review

Just when the jaded masses and ear-numbed critics were just getting ready to notarize the declaration that new-wave fueled punk is as artistically dead as Howard Dean’s presidential aims, New Black comes along to resuscitate the flagging genre’s hopes with a near-perfect debut. - Aversion, rest of review.

NEW BLACK 3/6 FIRESIDE BOWL-I put on the eponymous full-length (on Thick) from coed four-piece New Black late one afternoon, and damned if it wasn't a shot of caffeine straight up the vein. Compounding the mordant desperation of X, the giddiness of the B-52's, and nearly everything else that was great about early-80s postpunk, this agitating, aggravating record might be the most promising debut I've heard from a local act in the last year. The Coachwhips open. -Monica Kendrick - Chicago Reader

New Black is part of Chicago's new breed, away from the stodgy indie-rock acts, that's injecting a much-needed dose of fun--plus creativity--into the city's local canon. It just happens to draw, like so much of the current breed, on music from the eighties. It's less intentional and less accidental, than it is reactive. New City (read rest of article)

In an endless quest for punk rock grit, New Black producer Greg Norman (Guided By Voices, 90 Day Men) resorted to grabbing handfuls of 2 inch master tape and screwing them up to see what happened. It’s a tactic that certainly adds a certain wayward charm to the results, making this Chicago foursome sound like genuine refugees from the second wave that emerged from CBGB’s in the wake of Blondie. The tapes flutter like stoned butterflies, lending this pristine, polymorphous pop a veneer of seedy danger that sounds more like Joe Meek capturing The B-52’s mud-wrestling with The Pixies with every play. Unconsciously articulating the aesthetics of teen trash by feeding off their hormones, this is one for the Meek-hearted, not the meek. - Logo Magazine

… But New Black aren't just about the *bang, crash, boom* of rockin' punk. "Beatrice" is slightly more off-kilter, jilty and a little more interested descending into chaos and dragging you back out again. Not many bands can do this to you. Not many bands can make you want to jump up and *shake-it-all-about*. These guys can and these guys will. Ones to watch, look out and take cover! ***** - A Badge of Friendship

"Pop music fans: PAY ATTENTION!!! This is your new favorite band. Well written and serious, but light hearted and danceable, New Black are the future of pop music. Taking elements of keyboard pop and adding a hint of garagey soul proves to be the most sincere sound you've heard in years." - mpshows.com

"New Black's "Booze Olympics" is all fire and intoxicated fury..." - Splendid

"This is the first and only time in tipsheet history that I will agree with the band Bio to describe a band. “What if the B-52's had just one night of wild sex with Q and not U? And the resulting bastard child was neither boy nor girl, new wave nor no wave? What if were called New Black?” That’s a pretty accurate statement. With a new album due out on Thick Records in March, New Black throws you back to the 80’s keyboard pop while bringing it into the Y2K with vocal reminiscent of The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s. Trust me, you are going to love this band!" - thescout.net

"Why Santa? (santarchy) is as rousing and heartrending a punk rock xmas song I've ever heard with riot grrrl style vox. XmasVSchanukahX is a haunting toe-tapper itself." - wigwambam

Foreign Language Reviews:

 

mailing list

Enter your email below to join now!

next 7 shows

See all upcoming shows

community

Join us at Myspace and Purevolume.
bio | photos | download | buy | press | contact | time attack blog | home