“How can I think at a time like this / When everything just makes me sick? / AHHHHHHHHHH!”
Have truer words ever been sung/screamed about living in the year 2025? Probably not. These particular words come courtesy of Sarah Turbo, lead vocalist for Milwaukee hardcore/punk outfit Sex Scenes. On “Want & Need,” the third track from Sex Scenes’ new Everything Makes Me Sick, Turbo not only delivers the record’s title but gives voice to its animating anger and frustration. Toss in songs about toxic relationships and the destined-for-the-landfill detritus of consumerism, and Everything Makes Me Sick resonates as a perfect “gestures broadly at everything” record.
Sex Scenes have weathered numerous lineup changes since forming in 2016; their latest, with Turbo on the mic, Harrison Colby on guitar, Mary Joy on bass, and Gregg Twigg on drums is their most potent yet. One thing that has remained constant, however, is the group’s snotty and accessible spin on the hardcore genre. Pissed-off and thrash-happy opener “Fed Up” is more riffs and hooks than chaos and noise, while songs like “I’m Not Your T.V.” and “I’ll Play Along” have a touch of Motörhead coursing through their veins. (The latter’s “Nobody’s laughing / Nobody’s clapping” refrain is also a solid summation of Things Today.) Chugging closer “Nothing,” meanwhile, is Sick‘s big anti-capitalist stomper—as well as the only song on the nine-track record to break the two-minute mark.
“You can’t take it with you so they throw it in a hole / A plastic graveyard for the capitalist soul,” bellows Turbo on “Nothing.” Here and throughout her voice is a towering tidal wave of sneering menace; here and throughout Sex Scenes is an accompanying wave, an all-too-timely soundtrack to the inevitable crash.
Sex Scenes’ next Milwaukee show is Saturday, May 24 at Cactus Club, opening for Pissed Jeans and playing alongside Misprints.
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