Modern rock NorCal act Middle Class Rut blast out a heavy musical assault on their full-length debut, without sacrificing hooks or melody in the process. Despite being only a two-piece, these guys make more noise than Arcade Fire, Edward Sharpe, and all of his Magnetic Zeros ever could.
Riding high off the success of their single “New Low”, a mid-tempo ode to losing your way, Middle Class Rut have been rising up the rock hierarchy, gaining comparisons to Jane’s Addiction. Their album starts off with the barn-burning “Busy Bein’ Born”, and loses no momentum as it goes into “USA”. While the album is never short on screams, Middle Class Rut show great examples of melody and harmonizing on tracks like “Are You On Your Way” and “Dead End”, where both band members sing “Without you weight, I could be so much lighter”.
A lot of mainstream rock acts take pride in being “heavy” and “hard”, but it usually comes off as shameless posturing, or brings the heavy riffs and leaves the brains behind. Middle Class Rut are heavy like bands in the 90’s were heavy; they match the slamming drums and chugging power chords with an attitude that doesn’t feel fake.
As the album goes on, a few of the songs do tend to blend together, leaving some variation wanting, but as the acoustic guitars come out for closer “Cornbread”, sounding like a folksier Alice in Chains, you’ll realize that these guys are not a one-trick pony.
Take a listen to the album here!
The Indy Review 