U.S. Nero

In the spirit of Captain Beefheart, Flipper and The Fall, U.S. Nero open their new album with I’m a Commodity, a mash up of spoken word, screamed vocals and some experimental noise pop backing. The use of radio samples and different time shifts is prevalent throughout the album. However, these folks are not a one trick pony as Banned from the Mall enters into Byrds like harmonies and swirling psychedelic sound.
Mark E. Smith himself would be proud of You Remind Me of a Cop, a Fall like effort that breaks into a raucous repetitive riff driven punk song. Who’s coming out? Is a track where U.S. Nero exhibit their New Orleans roots with a grungy swampland garage rock guitar driven powerful effort.
The band toured last year supporting Comrade Nixon recently reviewed by this site and their version of punk rock is certainly experimental with different time sequences, vocal treatments and instruments. Race to the Bottom introduces keyboards before launching into a math-punk song.
Lost to Stay begins with some heavy guitar solo and a slower tempo and, for me, is the highlight of the album as it builds into a powerful churning song with some melodic vocals.
Tesla Coiled adds some weird lyrics to a more straight up punk tune (although “straight up” is a relative term for this band J) It is followed by the ghostly opening to The Electric Disease a track that launches into a fast and violent chorus before veering into almost unplugged verses…it really does work!
The album closes with The Banality of Evil another slower song that is instrumental and introduces numerous noises on top of and beneath a chord riff with a dub-reggae feel. It’s clever and intriguing just like the rest of the album – well worth a listen! The digital album is available here – https://usnero.bandcamp.com/album/free-thinker
Stumpy – Punk Online

Track Listing
I’m a Commodity
That Was
Banned from the Mall
Another Glib Statement
You Remind Me of a Cop
Who’s Coming Out?
On Top
Benefitting from Imperialism
Race to the Bottom
History Boys
Lost to Stay
Tesla Coiled
The Electric Disease
The Banality of Evil - Punk Online

Cory: So how long has U.S. Nero been making music?

Mike: We have been performing in our current line up since February. But I’ve been writing and recording songs as U.S. Nero since 2008. 2007 really, and it’s always been more of a recording project than a live project because I wasn’t playing live that much. I’ve done it solo and I’ve done it with a backing band, but this is is actually the first time I’ve have a rhythm section where we got together, learned a bunch of songs over the course of a few months, and we had a successful two week tour.

Cory: That’s right ya’ll just got back from tour, how was that? Where did you play?

Amelia: We went to Florida first.

Mike: It was just a Southeast tour we called it “Civilizing the South”, which is this idea that the south is this uncivilized place full of bigotry and southern stereotypes. It also was just a joke because we were going to be going to all these cities and asking people to give us free food and a place to stay. So “Please be civil! Please be civil south! We’re civilizing you!”

Amelia: Almost all the cities were actually a lot cleaner than New Orleans so as we were driving through I kinda felt that I was actually uncivilized. I was like Fuck! I’m more uncivilized than all these people, probably. But I mean, what is civilized, really?

Mike: We were also pretending to be colonialists the whole time. We’re civilizing this land, yes?

Amelia: These people here, they need culture!

(Laughter)

Cory: I was really impressed with the videos you have for your songs. Do you put those together yourself?

Mike: That’s actually my friend Sierra. That is completely her project. I make recordings, I’ll home record my band and I’ll record friend’s bands, and as soon as they’re uploaded, she’ll take them and do her thing. She gets a lot of footage from the Library of Congress. She makes an attempt to only use stuff that’s non-copyrighted, you know, like stuff that’s public domain.

Amelia: She actually did videos for a bunch of other local bands that are pretty awesome. She did one for another project I’m in called Merkabah that was pretty awesome. She did one for our song “Culture.” She makes great images too.

Mike: I don’t know where she gets all her footage from but I know my favorite one she did was for this song called “Black Gums” and it was of this bridge that looked like it was made of rubber, it was an actual bridge that cars were driving over but the whole bridge is blowing in the breeze like it’s made of rubber. And it’s apparently actual footage of something that happened.

Amelia: Oh, yeah it’s this real bridge in New York I think. This architect built it and it didn’t have enough support.

(Editor’s note: They’re referring to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that was in Washington State. Also referred to as Galloping Gertie)

Mike: I don’t know if the footage itself is altered time-wise, but it looks just completely surreal and unnatural.

Cory: Yeah because the bridge is literally rocking back and forth and you think “how does something supposedly solid like that move so much?

Mike: It’s like somebody doing the pencil trick in front of you but on a massive scale.

(Laughter)

Cory: So what are some influences for the band?

Amelia: I’ve been listening to a lot of singer-songwriter stuff right now, like older stuff. I’m kinda new to music. Like starting at the beginning and working my way through it. My biggest influences right now are honestly the bands I’m in.

Mike: When I started making music I think I had the Dead Kennedys in mind more than any other band. I listened to them a lot in High School. The idea of calling it “Post Apocalyptic Surf Music” was more like I would describe the Dead Kennedys than my own music, but I liked the way it sounded so I just started using it. Another really big influence was Built to Spill as far as guitar technique goes. I always want to move the band toward being less punk rock and more like Built to Spill. I kind of listen to a really broad array of music so I could go on and on and on and on, and I’d probably sound like kind of a poseur.

(Laughter)

Mike: (to Amelia) But you were listening to a lot of Crass when you joined the band.

Amelia: Oh I was listening to Redimentary Peni.

Mike: -Oh, Rudimentary Peni.

Amelia: Rudimentary Peni is awesome. I love the album Death Church. It’s so angry. That guy is pissed. My favorite song is “Inside”

(Mike starts singing)

Amelia: Dude you’re singing it way fast. That song is like, a dirge. We cover it in Merkabah. But yeah, lot of Leonard Cohen lately. Paul Simon. Heavy heavy emphasis on lyrics. Lyrical content is number one on my list of things.

Mike: You listened to Leonard Cohen a lot on tour.

Amelia: Well, I was sad because I was trapped in a car a lot and I had to express myself.

Mike: Don Caballero. That’s a big influence.

Cory: Yes!

Amelia: We listened to that on tour.

Mike: There’s maybe three songs that we have that change time signature, and It’s me slowly trying to be more like Don Caballero. I played with a band called Drunken Sufis in Brooklyn. They’ve become an influence of mine in that I would like to make stuff that sounds more chaotic than they do. But it’s not actually chaos, it’s actually very structured music that sounds chaotic. But I’m nowhere near, they’re still much better. They’re a great band. I was ashamed when I played with them.

(Laughter)

Mike: Personally, like nobody shamed me, nobody made me feel like that. [Watching them] I just felt like “I am an underachiever.”

(Laughter)

Cory: Your show is tomorrow?

Mike: Sunday at Rare Form right next to Dragon’s Den on Frenchmen. They have that outdoor stage and a little tiki bar. It’s a benefit show for Dig Easy Compost, a non-profit compost company in the city, and there’s like six bands playing. There’s a lot of bands.

Cory: So what’s next for the band?

Mike: The next two projects for the U.S. Nero are probably an EP or and EP length album with a really long comedy sketch at the end to make it LP length called “Why Don’t They Cherish the Moon.” And also before that we’re probably going to do a split with Milli’s other band Merkabah called “We Have Chemistry With Everyone.” That will probably happen first, hopefully really soon, because in the next few months I’d really like to try to tour. I would like to go to the South West coast, like L.A. and Tijuana, if we can find an affordable way to get there. I think next summer I’d like to try the Northeast again because I haven’t been back to the Northeast in like a year.

Cory: Awesome. Thanks for talking with us, and have a good show on Sunday. - Southern Hostility

How much does this Dry Birth Records sampler love the ‘90s? Let us count the ways: 1) cassette release, with high gloss j-card and crayon red cassette; 2) eclectic showcase that goes from lo-fi hip-hop to snot-punk to gritty basement noise jams; 3) a track by Dang Bruh-Y?—a band literally from the ‘90s who ruled the funk-punk slice of the New Orleans underground during that first Clinton presidency; 4) a 4-page handwritten letter to the AG P.O. box accompanying said cassette, detailing at length Dry Birth CEO Michael Kunz’s previously unsuccessful attempts to get reviewed, as well as a personal take on New Orleans’ musical history of the last decade and a breakdown of the compilation (nice touch, Michael!). Standout tracks include the gnarly, snarly “Frozen Food” by the Melville Dewys, the dreamy, Ween-inspired “Celestia” by Pretty Party, and the twisted rap sorcery of Metatronic Sic Hop’s “Black Yeshua”. For anyone who is feeling the Disneyfication or Burning Man Creep of this city’s current culture wars, wondering if there are any pockets of genuine, old-school freaks left, find this cassette and take solace that there’s still some spice in our city’s musical special sauce.
—Dan Fox - Antigravity