Whatever Brains

At the first Hopscotch, on a bill with the legendary Fucked Up, Whatever Brains keyboardist Hank Shore, ex-mascot for Enloe High, played in a full-body eagle costume. And even after his band’s set, he could be seen in the crowd, moshing with wild abandon, his eagle mask bouncing in the pit. And that’s Whatever Brains’ character in a nutshell: The band’s aggression is tempered by playfulness, or maybe it’s the other way around.

In this Raleigh act’s hands, the collision of punk and garage styles is a hell of a lot of fun. What drives the fun is the members’ refusal—inability, even—to take the trappings of the music industry seriously. More concerned with the music itself than genre identity, the five members draw from their experiences in everything from noise to punk and metal bands. The result is something like Dead Kennedys with The Byrds in a headlock, in a mental institution. The band dodges around, jumping from gritty, casually-recorded lo-fi one minute to blown-amp psychedelia the next. But there’s always that punk element, a sneer that sometimes sounds like a Mark Arm wheedle or the results of dental anesthesia.

In just three years, Whatever Brains have released a ton of material—seven offerings in various, occasionally obsolete formats—but it’s been several months since the last one, an eternity by this band’s timeframe. Instead, the Brains have been focused on a monster of an LP (17 tracks) to be released shortly before Hopscotch on Carrboro’s Sorry State Records. Initial listens reveal the same raw energy, not bothered by a slightly higher production value. Yet the band has fully incorporated the newest member, the eagle-outfitted keyboardist, with slurry synth lines and drum machines, flying proudly alongside the garage-riff-rock nastiness. —Corbie Hill