Dig ‘in: PET NEEDS, Joyce Manor, Courtney Barnett
Check out what the No Wristbands team is listening to and what’s in our show calendars this month on our latest Dig ‘in.
INCOMING
PET NEEDS - Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism (Xtra Mile Recordings LP)
Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism is the 4th full-length album by Colchester, UK band PET NEEDS. They’ve been fairly prolific, with records released in 2021, 2022, 2024 and now 2026. And they’ve been touring relentlessly—it’s tough to make a living as a musician without that kind of effort nowadays. But that can also take a toll, beating you down. Johnny Marriott (vocalist, songwriter) addresses some of these stresses on this new record. The whole creative process can be energizing—writing the tunes, creating the record in the studio, designing the artwork. It’s what musicians do. But as Johnny sings on “Keep Eyes On,” at some point “The art of marketing has superseded the art of art.” And that can be suffocating.
Elbows Out! is an album intended to be listened thru from start to finish. Yes, there are some great individual songs on this one (some of my favorites are “Tour Worn,” “Vertical” and the first single “Hey You Hey You (Are You Are You OK OK?),” but there is a theme here and the content builds on itself. On the poppy “Ducklings,” Johnny addresses his mental state: “ADHD is a real diagnosis / Don’t believe the media hyperactivity.” And I felt a strong connection to his lyrics on “The Wardrobe Song”: “The world is crumbling as I stare into my wardrobe / wondering which local band t-shirt will make it look like I support the scene most.”
The band is strong on this one, led by guitar-slinger & brother George Marriott. Bassist Ryan Sharman (love his hypnotic bass-line on “Party With a Hard T”) and drummer Jules Marrison-Cheek are versatile, swinging from hard punk rock to poppier tunes.
Now in his mid-30’s, Johnny sings on “Vertical”: “I’ve been singing songs down microphones since I was sixteen / in the hope that it would fix me / Nope! I still hurt.” Somehow, in spite of—or maybe because of—all the struggles and setbacks and mental challenges, PET NEEDS have released an incredible piece of art. They’ve earned any support that may come from that. -Tom Novak
Joyce Manor - I Used To Go To This Bar (Epitaph LP)
There’s a certain kind of band that you watch closely every album cycle because you know the stakes are high. Joyce Manor is one of those bands for me. They’ve been operating at such a consistent level since Never Hungover Again that every new record feels like a referendum: can they keep threading this needle?
I Used To Go To This Bar is their seventh album—and their first since 2022's 40 oz. to Fresno—and it finds Barry Johnson in a headspace that feels genuinely new for him. He’s always written about heartbreak and suburban restlessness, but here the subject is mortality. Friends dying. A drinking buddy whose funeral he skipped. The gradual realization that playing music doesn’t necessarily fix everything anymore. For a band known for making you want to sprint down a hallway at full speed, that’s a shift worth paying attention to.
The back half of the record is where things get really interesting to me. “After All You Put Me Through” is unlike anything in the Joyce Manor catalog—it’s got this weird, slightly funky, bummed-out pocket to it, bongos buried in the mix, hints of strings, Matt Ebert’s bass doing most of the heavy lifting. It shouldn’t work for a pop-punk band and yet it absolutely does. It feels like the kind of song that reveals itself more on each listen, which isn’t always what you expect from a band that usually puts everything right on the surface.
The leap is most obvious on “Grey Guitar,” which closes the record and is as good as anything they’ve ever written. It’s a song about imagining the different ways a long-lost friend might have died, and it doesn’t offer any resolution—just the discomfort of sitting with that uncertainty. Joyce Manor has always been great at the big anthemic closer, but this one doesn’t go out swinging. It just ends, like a conversation that didn’t get finished. I can’t stop thinking about it.
What I keep coming back to is that I Used To Go To This Bar feels like a band that has finally stopped looking over their shoulder. The record doesn’t feel like Joyce Manor trying to reconcile their punk past with growing up—it feels like they’ve just accepted that this is who they are now, and written accordingly. For a band I love as much as I love this one, that’s enough to make this feel like a real moment. -Mark Joyner
Courtney Barnett - Creature of Habit (Mom + Pop / Fiction Records LP)
While cementing herself as an established artist, Courtney Barnett never seems content to exist in a comfortable state. Her questioning nature and keen ability for breaking down facades has her examining life patterns and motives on Creatures of Habit. “I am exercising how good it feels to be alive, and / No surprises up my sleeve, everything is temporary,” she sings on “Mantis.” While waiting for the next shoe to drop, Barnett navigates an obstacle course beset with roadblocks and detours. A sense of doubt creeps in on “Stay In Your Lane” when she confesses “This never would’ve happened if I / Stayed in my lane, stayed the same way.”
Ultimately, Barnett’s will to forge ahead, damn the consequences, provides the liberation that frees her from stasis. On the lovely duet “Site Unseen,” with Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, she throws caution to the wind in seeking out a new landing spot: “Letting go of everything that might’ve been / And if we like it here, we’ll stay another year.” When the record wraps up with “Another Beautiful Day,” Barnett is ready to savor life’s defining moments in the race against time. “Reborn, every morning / Still somehow getting older,” comes the recognition, followed by “Lost in time / Hope that I might see you on the other side.” On Creature of Habits, Barnett doesn’t permit any self-imposed limitations from obscuring the bigger picture that life carries on and that we would all benefit from not succumbing to an eternity of regrets. -Bruce Novak
UPCOMING
dust at Empty Bottle - Apr 4, 9:00 PM
The bulk of the members of dust grew up in Maitland, Australia, which was not a conducive environment for an aspiring indie band. A relocation to Newcastle and the support of younger demographic centered around the city’s namesake university helped jumpstart the group. The more insular environment compared to Sydney or Melbourne allowed dust the time to hone their craft without undue scrutiny. Now they’ve emerged as a well-formed post-punk outfit that can stand with some of their prime influences like Fontaines DC and Shame.
Their initial EP, 2023’s et cetera, etc was mastered by Party Dozen’s drummer Jonathan Boulet. In addition to playing shows together, the two bands prominently feature saxophones in their music—a relative rarity for the genre. Dust has craftfully distilled the elements of cyclonic post-punk, electronic pulse and discordant jazz on last year’s debut album, Sky is Falling. Outside an appearance at SXSW in 2024, this will be the band’s first extended exposure to US audiences. In a loaded triple bill, they’ll be sharing the stage with fellow Australians The Belair Lip Bombs and Brooklyn’s Laveda. -Bruce Novak
Man’s Body at Montrose Saloon - Apr 10, 9:00 PM
“Hang that man” comes the chorus from “American Firesale,” the lead single of Man’s Body’s new EP, For All the Jailhouse Chess Masters. Instead of landing fast and furious as one might anticipate, the song unfolds leisurely over five plus minutes in rollicking sing along fashion with recording engineer Mike Hagler’s guest Farfisa organ accompaniment lending a carnivalesque vibe. Lead songwriter J. Niimi taps into the power of resistance while relishing the day of national reckoning.
Niimi and vocalist Greg Franco met through guitarist Andy Creighton when he and Niimi played an Ashtray Boy gig in LA in 2014 that Franco booked. The following year Franco came thru Chicago with his band Rough Church to play a show at Schubas Tavern and rehearsed beforehand at Niimi’s home. Their shared interests led to the formation of Man’s Body, which Franco named in homage to Chicago’s mob history and perceived news reports of the outfit’s victims being discovered around town.
The band will be celebrating the release of the new six song EP at their Montrose gig, where they’ll be offering limited edition vinyl copies that are being issued on Franco’s Beautiful Workhorse Recordings label. -Bruce Novak
Art Brut at Subterranean - Apr 15, 8:00 PM
When No Wristbands hosted Eddie Argos on the pod this past February, he enthusiastically professed that Chicago is his favorite US city and compared our local dialect to that of professional wrestlers! He noted whereas back in Europe audiences found the song “Emily Kane” as sarcastic, American audiences embraced it for its sincerity. Argos attributed the difference in perception to stateside exposure to artists like Jonathan Richman, Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair—all of whom influenced him in the development of Art Brut.
The band will be performing their 2005 debut album, Bang Bang Rock & Roll, in its entirety plus a bevy of additional bangers. In our interview, Argos revealed that Art Brut has been recording some new songs and to expect a few of them to hit the setlist. It’s been fifteen years since he visited these parts (he now resides in Berlin), so the consummate performer can expect a warm return reception. In true wrestle-speak, welcome back to the ring Sir Argos and let’s get ready to rumble! -Bruce Novak
UNCOVERED
Ashtray Boy - The Honeymoon Suite (Feel Good All Over LP)
Australian musician Randall Lee was the primary vocalist and guitarist for The Cannanes on their debut album, The African Man’s Tomato, before setting out on his own to lead the band Nice for a couple of years and then resurrecting his dormant outfit Ashtray Boy, that began as a solo project originally called Astro Boy. The band was a transcontinental endeavor with Lee splitting time between Sydney and Chicago, assembling different line-ups for each city.
Ashtray Boy’s 1993 debut, The Honeymoon Suite, was recorded at Dave Trumfio’s Kingsize basement studio withDiscogs the Chicago line-up that was supplemented with Trumfio (Pulsars, The Mekons) on bass and sitar, and J. Niimi (Aden, Man’s Body) on drums and percussion. Lee’s droll, baritone delivery and divergent lyrics frame songs that are stately and baroque, yet retain an affecting intimacy. The soon-to-be sensation Liz Phair (then a roommate of Feel Good All Over’s founder John Henderson) turns up as a guest vocalist on tracks “Shirley MacLaine” and “Infidel,” duetting tenderly with Lee. “Time For a Baby” is a buoyant standout with a slow build-up that morphs into a gleeful celebration. Elsewhere, “Ananda Marga” delivers blissful zen vibes, true to its tantric subject manner. The Honeymoon Suite heralded the promising beginnings for Ashtray Boy who would go on to release an impactful nine albums over the course of their tenure before wrapping up about a decade ago. -Bruce Novak
We recommend listening along over at our Spotify page. Here’s this week’s content: