Star Fucking Hipsters, Until We’re Dead

Star Fucking Hipsters are a classic punk band. Their songs rarely clock in over two minutes. Their live shows often involve a couple bottles of Jameson’s and a ton of aggression. Their lyrics are politically charged, awakening calls for nonconformity and awareness to the pitfalls of greed and the fruitlessness of war. Despite this, however, their release Until We’re Dead is anything but a classic punk rock album.

The band consists of Sturg Fuckin’ Hipster, Frank D. Generic, Ara Slack, Yula Beeri, and Nico de Gaillo, who all hail from other projects like Choking Victim, Leftover Crack, The Degenerics, and the Slackers (among others). Their numbers can sometimes swell even higher, as they treat Star Fucking Hipsters as more a musical collective than a typical band. The result is sensational. Until We’re Dead is an epic album. Epic in part because they have something to say, which roots their music with a validity, purpose, and passion that is too often missing in everyday commercial releases, but also because of the musical scope of the album, a result of the many different musicians and styles that came together for this project.

The title track starts off with a mid-tempo piano solo, reminiscent of Danny Elfman’s work in the ’80s, and then slams into a full tilt Bad Religion-ish anthem about war, cops, avarice, and capitalism, all in one song. The standout track of the bunch is by far “Empty Lives,” a slow-tempo punk ballad that simply reminds you that as long as you’re breathing you can learn and free yourself from misconceptions, prejudice, and conformity. Whether you’re a hardcore vegan straightedge anarchist or a Libertarian high school dropout, the song will get you amped and serve as a powerful call to arms that you’re never out of time until you’re dead.

This album is accessible to people who aren’t hardcore punk fans, but that isn’t by design; it’s just a natural extension of where their music and collaboration took them, but through it all they never lose sight of their punk ethic. Until We’re Dead is anything but a classic punk rock album. It is much, much more.