Retirement, Lazer Bullet, Rotary Club, Buckaroo

Retirement and Lazer Bullet PDX hardcore punx hit Reno!

Does “hardcore” mean anything when consensus reality is unraveling in real time?* Why split hairs between powerviolence, noise, D-beat, and any other extreme music when the planet is melting and “PUNK” is right there? Retirement make contemporary music for bad times. There’s a lot of yelling.

Borne from a series of solo recordings, Retirement mutated into a nameless trio in 2014 in Portland, Oregon. Over time the band gained a name and a forth member and developed a sound informed by the gnarly hardcore of Negative Approach and Crossed Out, No Trend’s antagonistic noise, and the outré darkness of Throbbing Gristle and Rudimentary Peni (whose “In Crematorium Flame” is duly reimagined on Retirement’s Bleed City tape).

Ahead of the upcoming Attention Economy LP on Iron Lung Records, Bleed City remains the best representation of Retirement today, with an A-side of self-recorded violent smashers (including nascent Attention Economy songs) and a flip that reveals Retirement’s experimental leanings with an ambient track (a side of the band they’d further explore on the 2023 release The Will to Thrive) and a remix by Andrew Nolan of Intensive Care.

Retirement is: Kevin Purcell (vocals, guitar, noise), Tom Wassum (guitar), Cissie Scurlock (bass), and Ryan Koger (drums).

With local support from Rotary Club and Buckaroo.

Always All Ages