Back From The Dead: Blackmarket Syndicate, Coming Back Around Tomorrow Night

And now for some more good news… A few years back I got sent a CD, Why Do We Even Try?, by a scrappy little trio I’d never heard of before called Deathbed Repentance, and I was immediately blown away by the band’s streetwise-yet-somehow-rootsy breed of punk, which pretty much bridged the territory between Social Distortion at their bluesiest and Rancid’s fists-up NorCal politico-punk.

A seeming handful of shows later, the band renamed itself {Blackmarket Syndicate}, gained a new member (I think), and then…well, they kind of disappeared for a little while there. Not sure what happened, exactly, because they seemed to be getting a bit better-known ’round this city & elsewhere, were touring pretty seriously, and then, I dunno.

Zip forward to now, and lo and behold, they’ve returned. The Syndicate guys are back with a brand-new album, And the Peasants Rejoiced (which I’m finally getting a chance to listen to now, and hell, it’s pretty damn good so far), and to celebrate they’re playing tomorrow night, Sat., April 21st, up at Fitzgerald’s along with {Skeleton Dick}, {Dead to the World}, and {The American Heist}, all of whom I’ve either seen/heard and liked or heard good stuff about.

And despite the name change and handful of years in-between, that fire from Why Do We Even Try? is still burning brightly; check out the entertainingly old-school video for “Plead the 5th,” off the new album, for proof:

There you go — I’ll hopefully be able to write up an honest-to-God review before the actual show, so keep an eye out, but in the meantime, I’m just glad these guys are back.