Over the past few years, Providence’s noise music legacy has been funneled into a new generation. Ex-Fort Thunder stalwarts Lightning Bolt along with the likes of Doomsday Student and Minibeast have been carrying the proverbial torch for a while now, and due to their consistent brilliance their influence has resonated with a youthful wave of bands. One of those bands is Hairspray Queen, an act featuring Lovesick members Nathan Thao Phrathep on guitar and Joshua Rodriguez keeping it together on drums, ex-I Eat Rocks vocalist Ben Bigelow on bass, and Ian Benoit on guitar while frontman Raymond Fernandez howls distorted vocals.
Today Vanyaland premieres the 75-second punk rager “Hang Them” ahead of the band’s release of their self-titled EP on January 6.
“Most of the EP was recorded in Boston at Converse Rubber Tracks,” Benoit tells Vanyaland. “All of it is either from first or second takes and perhaps maybe even a third one. We tracked additional guitars for one song at Distorted Forest with Jared Mann who also handled the mixing and mastering.”
Mann has been making a name for himself around Providence as an engineer and a producer through his work with local punks Gymshorts and his own bands Twin Foxes and Willow. He always manages to leave some nice finishing touches on any recording he’s affiliated with and “Hang Them” is a great example of that.
On the day EP is out, Hairspray Queen host its release party at AS220 with post-punks Way Out, Boston garage rock fiends Black Beach, and punk weirdos Goon Planet and Funeral Cone. It’s a stacked bill that shouldn’t go overlooked; get primed with Hairspray Queen’s new sounds below.
