Rebellion in the rock genre is back and better than ever right now, and I’m not talking about the hybrid hip-hop/punk acts that have been taking over the mainstream exclusively. Buried beneath the pop music culture that you’ll find anywhere on the FM dial right now is a feverishly talented underground scene cultivating what sounds, feels, and seems to be some of the realest punk rock we’ve heard since the early 1990s, and among the bands that have come to my attention lately, I think Julius Sumner Miller is one of the most talented. To put it simply, their new single “Leave the Key” summarizes a vibe that’s taking this scene by storm.
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/juliussumnermillerband/
The way this band mixed their latest single puts the riffing at the forefront of our attention, but it doesn’t minimize the impact of the percussion or the lead vocal as a result. Balance appears to be something that Julius Sumner Miller takes pretty seriously, and were this not the case I don’t think they would have put as much time into giving the beat and the melodic elements as equal a footing as they did. The little melodicism there is seems insignificant next to the brutishness of everything else, but in the grander scheme of things, I don’t really see this as a negative.
I wasn’t listening to Julius Sumner Miller before “Leave the Key,” but after checking out the music video for this track and getting a feel for who this group of musicians is, I think it’s pretty obvious that they’re in for a lot of affection from the punk rock faithful as they get a bigger footprint in the underground. A stellar single like this one is a great way to raise attention to their sound, and I can see where an album full of razor-sharp content on this level could do even more.
Kim Muncie