The Public Serpents!

Band: Public Serpents

Country: USA

Notable Album: The Feeding Of The Fortune 5000

Favourite Song: Hated By A Nation

This is unbelievable - 3 days in a row and things are still going smoothly!  Today's post will be short because I'm hanging with friends and jamming in a bit and I was late getting home from work.  Hopefully tomorrow will be back to more in-depth stuff but for now I just have to get this done.


SOOOOO Public Serpents hail from the You Ess Of Eh and play their own style of crack rock steady.  This means that if you didn't like Antimaniax or the Infested, you probably won't like these guys either.  But they take the letter P for today since I haven't talked about a crack rock steady band in a long time!  I think a few guys from Choking Victim might actually play in the Public Serpents but I can't say for sure.  I've owned The Feeding Of The Fortune 5000 for a few years and haven't listened to it in a while, but it seemed appropriate since they're a lot more obscure than the Planet Smashers (plus I bet a lot of people expected me to write about them - HAHAHAHA YOU'RE WRONG).


My most vivid memory that this album brings back is actually my trip to Saskatchewan.  The last time I listened to this album all the way through was on a 5-hour bus trip from Cadillac (population 500) to Regina before I headed off to Montreal (which was right before I headed off to the arctic. Told you my summer was rad.).  If you're a fan of Choking Victim, Leftover Crack, The Infested, or the Antimaniax, you'll definitely like these guys.  The recording quality of the album is similar to the Infested album in the sense that it's actually recorded fairly well, but it's missing a lot of low-end.  The music is angry, choppy, and surprisingly original for a ska-punk band, no matter what sub-genre you choose to put them into.  It's hard to hear what the singer says a lot, but the music more than makes up for the lack of clarity anyways - it's definitely an enjoyable listen if you're OK with some anger in your ska.


It never ceases to amaze me how hard it is to choose a favourite song from the albums that I write about.  You'd think that after listening to these CDs over and over, I'd be able to choose a song that stands out - but I suppose that's what makes an album a good one.  If you have a hard time choosing your favourite because you like so many, then that's an album that did it's job.  If I had to choose one song (which I do, I know), I'd probably say Hated By A Nation is my favourite, but not by much.  Hated By A Nation is the second track on the album, and is more of a generic ska-punk song.  2 separate 4-chord progressions are all that make up the song - which is not a bad thing because the intensity that the song provides is really what makes it unique.  Brandon told me once that it sounded like a really angry little kids' song and to be honest, I can see what he means - it's a weird sort of happy angry yelling.  But the chorus is super intense, and the verse is perfect for angry skanking so I have to name this as my favourite track.  Other great tracks are Effigies Of Life, Death Of A Revolutionary, and The Feeding Of The Fortune 5000.


You can grab the album here - I now have the daunting task of playing music and finding a ska band with the letter Q for tomorrow!