Wax!

The clashing guitars and bass-heavy rhythm of Chicago's Haymarket Riot conjure immediate comparisons to Fugazi. But while the Washington, D.C. veterans are certainly a stylistic touchstone, Haymarket Riot's soapbox is stowed neatly in a corner of its studio. The quiet-loud dynamics and turn-on-a-dime chord progressions are present and accounted for. But it's Haymarket Riot's lack of an agenda (beyond making intense, electrically charged music) that distances itself from both Fugazi and any ties to the emo genre. Guitarist and contributing vocalist Kevin J Frank's lyrics are decidedly obtuse; lines like "This lake is no fun at all/the water smells like burning licorice" may have meaning, but the words never wrest any sense of importance away from the slashing guitars and staccato basslines. This is calculated. The lack of a defined frontman (all four muscians gang up on the microphone) only brings Haymarket Riot's dedication to making challenging, aggressive music into better focus. The first half of this four-song EP is more tentative than the last; "Eight Steps to Bliss," the opener, doesn't shake its Fugazi influence as well as the latter material. But the group vocals on "Super Network and "Wood House Crumbling"'s extended instrumental sections recall past Chicago post-punk like Pegboy or Gauge, suggesting that the band's name isn't its only history lesson.