STRAIGHT UP NOISY // Drive Like Jehu - Here Come the Rome Plows // Composer Reaction & Analysis

[@Lancelot30]

Probably one of the most intense and energetic intros to any album in human history. Perfect introduction to the frantic prog post-hardcore that is Drive Like Jehu. The album is phenomenal and is extremely diverse. Would love a full reaction at some point.

[@chilipismysignature5031]

LFG!!!! I'm loving the post-hardcore stuff and I don't care much for reaction videos because they're generally pointless but you take such a deep dive and it's great.

[@chilipismysignature5031]

It's noisy but cohesive it creates a song and you can hear the melody through the noise. It works. Might take a couple listens tho lol.

[@freq9939]

Sonic youth was a big influence on indie rock/punk in the 80s. Using droning, extended chords and dissonance as a way to create new texture dynamics. Slint also was one of those weird post hardcore bands that pioneered the noise rock side of Math rock and they spawned a lot of bands in this world. There’s a lot of crossover grey area of early Chaotic proggy emo. Check out June of 44- engine takes to the water.

[@helm_108]

Sometimes it’s just not about whether you can count it out..

[@phmock]

My favorite Jehu track. The weird timing and dissonance give it some nervous, frenetic energy that is rarely achieved by any other band. It keeps you on the edge of your seat at all times.

[@NoeticSystem]

I always thought it would be interesting to arrange Here Come the Rome Plows for orchestra. It starts up, and the bass line is played by a Double Bass just absolutely brutally hammering on those strings, and then the violins, violas, and brass section come in for the guitar parts and it's purely apocalyptic, with the vocal part played by swelling brass. For the palm-muted chucking bridge part, instead, we get staccato strings and horn/trombone calls in this sort of anthemic, brutal marching pattern with a touch of mad science. I think it would sound amazing.

[@davidricart1395]

Wow you actually reacted to them. Thanks homie Drive Like Jehu was the artsy project of John Reis..legendary down-stroke warlord from San Diego who also fronted like 6 other bands. DLJ played fast, emotional, and challenging music largely because that's what Reis wanted to play. And yes, he loved making crazy sounds. He ripped off the panels of his guitar to expose the electronics underneath and he'd press them up to his amps to create insane bird-chippy sounds. Around this time in the early 90s, he also played lead guitar for Rocket from the Crypt, which played much more conventional punk/rock music. This song is definitely a challenging listen...they do a lot of weird rhythmic transitions. Up until 1:26, it's 5/4 the entire time (maybe you're getting thrown off by the syncopated snare drum?) -- then at 1:26, it's two measures of 6/8 followed by two measures of 10/8 -- which I hear as a group of 6 followed by a group of 4. That's basically the rhythmic skeleton of the entire song. But it's definitely jarring the first time you hear it because it's so fast and noisy. All I can say is I hope this doesn't dissaude you from potentially giving this band another listen down the road (or maybe another John Reis band).. DLJ has a relatively varied sound, though a majority of their songs do have some noisy elements. Thanks again for listening to them.

[@billy2896]

i just had a breakup and your videos help me feel less lonely and get my mind off things. :,) thank you criticalreactions!

[@CriticalReactions]

Glad I could help in the little way that I can. I know it hurts now but things will get better.

[@LeashMechanic]

It’s definitely hard to think about anything else when this is playing

[@billy2896]

@@LeashMechanic Already feel a lot better!

[@craigdaily4510]

I remember getting this when it came out in high school. I really loved the energy of this album! At a time when Green Day dominated the air waves this was something quite a bit different

[@blotaosten4311]

Discovered this group last year and this album has quickly become one of my favorites of all time!

[@john8915]

I think you nailed it when you mentioned the tension in everything. Parts of this song gives me that feeling of talking to a stranger and feeling threatened and waiting for them to snap.

[@pechondelgado]

Critical Reactions, check out No Knife - The Red Bedroom. San Diego post punk/pop influenced indie rock that stemmed from the same scene as Drive Like Jehu.

[@kyle52905]

Oh my god yes I've just been on a crazy binge of this band's discography recently. They are definitely more in the pop punk/emo realm compared to Drive like Jehu they even toured with Jimmy Eat World a bunch back then but they still lean heavily into those post-hardcore roots.

[@reddish98]

Hell yeah, No Knife are a hidden gem. I'd live to se Bryan react to something off of Fire in the City of Automatons, like Secret Handshake

[@coolvad3r]

yes! ... no knife is one of my favorites! ... so creative and unique.

[@davidricart1395]

thanks for this. I'm a huge Jehu fan so i will check these guys out.

[@DiiNovensiles]

Hahaha I had a feeling you wouldn't like this track. Most of the album is noisy and intricately layered, but less dissonant than Rome Plows. That intro especially. For what it's worth, it's not my favorite off the album. But it is track 1 and a fair introduction.

[@myguitardidyermom212]

The drummer on this record, Mark Trombino, went on to pretty much define the sound of late 90s/early 00s pop punk as a producer/engineer. BLink182, Midtown (do the kids still know about midtown these days?), Jimmy Eat World, The Starting Line and a bunch more I probably don't remember. Not exactly the kind of dude I picture playing in a noisy punk band from san diego lol

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

I've definitely heard of this band as one of the earlier influences on the genre... it actually reminds me a lot of a slightly less chaotic Dillinger Escape Plan. I can easily imagine this being the kind of music DEP would've made before they went all mathy/proggy, and even the mathy elements are here a bit with the weird sounding meter. Generally not my kind of music, but I can definitely appreciate what they're doing (similar to how I feel about DEP) as there's a lot of musical substance here underneath the harsh noisiness.

[@ryansilvan2927]

Love this song so much. Miss you Froberg.

[@jaredscott367]

this song rips! the whole album is amazing

[@meatsuit6922]

Would highly suggest the track Caress, imo the definitive post-hardcore track

[@chilipismysignature5031]

"Difficult to follow but not difficult to groove with" is the perfect description 🤌

[@camswanson7403]

you should listen to "the everyday world of bodies by Rodan, they were from Louisville where Slint were from. Aslo react to washer by slint if you haven't done so, great song.

[@ilyas_elouchihi]

Drive Like Jehu rules!!

[@muskett00]

I enjoyed this song, but what makes this post hardcore and not punk? Seems like post-hardcore is a cooler genre to identify as, but I'd be interested to better understand why this isn't simply punk.

[@CriticalReactions]

There's a lot of crossover there since the two genres are closely related. Like any "Post-" genre, Post-Hardcore (PHC) took a sound and explored it in different direction than the original genre tended to go. So PHC took Hardcore Punk's raw aggression and simplicity and played around with those two ideas -- sometimes replacing the raw aggression with more melodic ideas and/or replacing the simplicity with complexity (either in singular ideas or overall structure). In a sense you could view PHC as a kind of "prog punk". Though there is also "pronk" which is "PROg puNK" so yeah...genres are confusing, what else is new 😄

[@muskett00]

@@CriticalReactions fair

[@davidricart1395]

@@muskett00 hardcore is a subgenre of punk. Back in the 90s when this album dropped, the label "post-hardcore" didn't really exist. It had only been a few years since the DC scene exploded with bands like Fugazi, Jawbox, and Nation of Ulysses...all of these bands were viewed as being part of the hardcore scene because most of their members had previously played in strictly hardcore bands. It was like "new hardcore" because the music they were playing had clearly evolved and the bands typically prescribed to new ethics that rejected the violence/racism of the old scene. Jehu in particular came from San Diego, and the hardcore scene there was notoriously violent and filled with neo nazis. So post-hardcore is a label that you can apply to any band that is "hardcore", in the sense that the music they're playing is aggressive, cathartic, unrelenting, also typically infused with a leftist political philosophy, and the band members identify with the hardcore scene etc., but the music is clearly distinct from the classic hardcore sound that was established by bands like Minor Threat. This obscure origin is why the "post-hardcore" label today is really... bizarre and often confusing. The connection of bands like Dance Gavin Dance to the origins of the label are tenuous at best. Most modern post-hardcore bands trace their primary influences to the early 2000s wave (bands like Thursday, Glassjaw, Thrice, and The Used).

[@muskett00]

@@davidricart1395 Thanks for sharing that with me/everyone. Brilliant explanation 👏

[@AlanPereira69]

They started as a pure hardcore band and got more technical with time

[@badbullit1]

just given Crash the Calm a listen and what can i say, if overproduced emo-by-numbers like that is your thing then you're gonna find Jehu hard going.. (insert King of the Hill 'all music is 4/4 if you don't count it like a nerd' jpeg here)

[@SpikeValentine]

There's no such thing as "post-Hardcore". It's just Emo/Screamo.

[@mk2710]

Such a stupid statement

[@greggerypeccary]

Hehe. Look at the comment I left on the Fugazi video... what they refer to as "post-HC" in the 21st Century (ATDI influenced bands) is more like post-screamo.

[@SpikeValentine]

@@mk2710 It isn't. This genres existed like that before you were born.

[@blakegorny2245]

Its pronounced like Jay-who