Mean Jeans get 'Blasted' on party-powered new LP
Notorious for their full bore live shows and an EPs worth of punky, commercial-ready jingles and tongue-in-cheek odes to junk food and cheap beer, unapologetic party rockers Mean Jeans return with Blasted, a fresh new LP that bops harder than the Ramones juiced up on a double shotgun of original formula Four Loko.
Blasted is an interesting album, one that doesn’t wholly forego Mean Jeans’ mastery of maximum throttle punk-n-roll but is markedly cleaner and, dare it be said, more mature than anything the band has released to date. By leaning into more traditional pop-punk stylings, Mean Jeans has forged a path that splits the difference between suburban skatepark shenanigans and backwoods beer blast barnstormers, threading the needle of youthful hedonism that unites revelers from all pages of the rock playbook. The broad appeal of this set of #1 party anthems is more than simply surface level, acknowledging the heavy consequences that churn in the wake of a good time that amplifies the challenges of everyday life like a persistent hangover.
Tracks like “Look What Punk’s Done To You” and “I Don’t Know What I Did Last Summer” confront the ramifications of a wasteoid existence amidst electric power chords and pogoing percussion, reframing rock-bottom as the ultimate destination of a blitzkrieged journey toward self-inflicted auto-annihilation. Mean Jeans shirk responsibility with gleeful abandon because they’re keenly aware of what lies at the endpoint. They understand exactly what it means to both burn out and fade away but abjectly refuse to do either, instead prolonging the magic through a never-ending cycle of beers, blunts, and bros. After all, you can’t die if you never stop l-i-v-i-n.’
JEFF The Brotherhood took a similar path in their mid-career discography, but where Jake and Jamin quickly embraced the creeping anxiety that encroached on the edges of polaroid snapshots, Mean Jeans refuses to give into to the harshness of reality, keeping concerns about money, politics, and societal pressures at bay by cracking another cold one for a little hair of the dog before diving back into yet another maelstrom of riotous mayhem.
Ultimately, Blasted is all about living in the moment with consequences deferred for another month, blissfully ignorant of the accruing interest that'll eventually be paid in hangovers and hospital stays as yet another pop punk casualty. But for for now, Mean Jeans are living large on a credit card.
Blasted is available now on Fat Wreck Chords. Stream the album on Spotify and follow Mean Jeans on Instagram.
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