Meg Ivy Brunning
Music journalist and photographer based in Cardiff (for now). Just trying to write about music that moves me in someway. If you do wish to find me though, I’ll usually be tucked away listening to music, talking to an animal on the street like a modern day Snow White or at a gig somewhere!
Industry Standard plunge us into a post-apocalyptic world with their latest punk rock romp C.J.O.S (Circle Jerk Of Sadness)
You know when you stumble upon something that is totally unique, so out of what you’d normally listen to, but your brain goes: “What is this? And why do I suddenly need more of it?” That’s exactly what happened to me when I dove head first into Industry Standard’s newest release ‘C.J.O.S (Circle Jerk of Sadness)’.
Forget genre boxes that need to be checked off, forget everything you thought you knew about band archetypes, because this London four-piece are here to lovingly smash these notions to bits. They’re like if a punk band decided to host a slightly unhinged carnival in a swamp (think Shrek but, like, a little less wholesome) and the ringleader had a bit too much coffee and the charisma of a gameshow host and you honestly might be close to nailing down Industry Standard’s vibe. It’s a bold and beautiful collision that they deem ‘Wonky Tonk Swamp Pop™’. And honestly? It really does hit you right in that sweet spot between joyous chaos and unsettling brilliance.
Before ‘C.J.O.S,’ there was ‘Blair!’ Industry Standard’s wonderfully inventive standout single. ‘C.J.O.S.’ plunges us back into the world of its vapid protagonist, only this time we’re navigating a truly messed up, post-apocalyptic wasteland ‘maybe it’s me that’s changed’. And maybe, it really is. A somewhat warped nightmare where the shopping centre might have crumbled to pieces, but the existential dread? Oh, that’s very much thriving!
Industry Standard tackle that inescapable sense of doom with spoken word, chaotic punk energy and theatrical soundscapes that take you by the scruff of the neck and grip you. It’s like they’ve taken all our collective anxieties and bottled them up into the most exhilarating, unsettling three minutes you’ll heat all week. It truly leaves a shiver down your spine, something so genuinely intimate and raw it really does catch you off guard.
So, if your Spotify queue is feeling a little bit too predictable these days and you’re constantly craving for something that stomps all over your expectations and doesn’t leave much room for anything else, then you absolutely need Industry Standard in your life, somehow, someway. They are currently hard at work on their debut album and if this single is a taste of what’s to come, I honestly cannot wait to dive headfirst into whatever brilliant, unsettling world they build next.
Listen to ‘C.J.O.S‘ here:
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