The Wake

I have discovered a really cool band. Their name is Bouncer Fighter.

The moniker may lend your mind to wander to a frat house band holding court in front of the Broman Senate, but don’t be fooled. Bouncer Fighter is the sort of creature that can be found occasionally and rarely in Minneapolis’s punk house basements: DIY, heavy, driving, and sharp but also inspired and inventive.

My first encounter with Bouncer Fighter occurred on a prematurely chilly day in early September. The five young, watch cap and flannel-clad troubadours took the stage an hour late and commenced a 6-song set of some of the best punk rock I’ve heard in years. I was hooked. I left the basement with a copy of what I could only deduce is a sort of CD compilation of practice tapes.

Bouncer Fighter’s musical style is hard to define precisely.

There’s punk rock in there somewhere, but the music is in reality far more articulated then simple two chord blitzes. Songs range from spooky, evil-organ dirges to hopeful anarchist anthems. Jangly western-folk style guitars, evil-preacher gospel keyboards and spooky blues vocals give the impression that the listener has just stepped into a post-apocalyptic shitkicker in a fallout shelter, the inhabitants of which have not entirely despaired of love and hope.