Had Joy Division or The Ramones plied their unique trade of incensed rock angularity in Los Angeles instead of Queens, NYC or England’s north-west, the resulting music might have sounded something along the lines of Sextile. They’re an LA-based three-piece comprising Melissa Scaduto, Eddie Wuebben and Brady Keehn, a trio doing their damnedest – if ‘One Of These’ is anything to go by – to pay warm homage to Curtis, Sumner and Hook, and all their contemporaries.

As a stable fixture on the Los Angeles underground scene over recent years, and after getting down to serious surf-punk, early industrial-style graft in an Echo Park basement for a cool fortnight, Sextile have come up with an LP entitled Albeit Living (inspired, no doubt, by their reaction to Trumpism) which is a product far removed from the mainstream cack that record behemoths like to push like so many poisonous bags of aural scag.

This 10-song LP is a flinty statement, a pleasant V-sign to the teched-up hordes who wander through western streets with eyes that can only reveal their hidden shallows. Sextile look different, Scaduto coming across like an unknowable brunette Blondie, the fellas suppressing smirks. They’re doing things at a tangent, which is a stance uncommon and brave but, nonetheless, one that should be applauded given that most modern bands are chasing the dollar, craven, on their knees, and only for the short term. And this lot aren’t, despite the obvious influences. Good luck to them.

Albeit Living, the new album from Sextile, is out 14 July on Felte.

Jason Holmes
@JasonAHolmes