Photos and Review by Drake Boling
What’s your favorite album of 2023 so far?
Really, that one? No, it’s cool! Yeah I listened through it a couple times! No, it is cool! But I regret to inform you it indeed sucks when compared to Life Under The Gun, the debut LP from the strapping young lads in Militarie Gun.
As someone addicted to disappointment, I shouldn’t have been surprised that hardcore heroes Scowl dropped off the bill for a couple midwest dates, leaving Militarie Gun to fend for themselves as last-minute headliners. As much as I have wanted to see Scowl for a long time, the prospect of a marginally longer Militarie Gun set compensated for any lost excitement.
Militarie Gun, (the silliness of their name aside) falls into that beautiful category of music that seems more true the louder it plays. I had been a fan of MG since first hearing the tightly-wound rage of the opening “HEY HEY”s of Big Disappointment from their 2021 EP, All Roads Lead to the Gun, but the band became one of my favorites after seeing them open for Louisville’s own White Reaper at Headliner’s Hall in March. Even after seeing how explosive of a live act they could be, nothing could have prepared me for just how excellent Life Under the Gun would be. Since its release mid-sommar, the album quickly became one of my most-listened-to records of the year– specifically side A already showing sides of wear from near-constant rotation.
While it was not the most packed house I’ve seen at Portal, there was a solid amount of 2-stepping and jostling in the pit to the opening bands, Louisville’s Shitfire, and touring support Big Laugh, who both set the tone for an evening of intense, alternative, hardcore.
MG opened with Do It Faster, an incredibly catchy skate punk song that makes you want to flip off your parents and kickflip into a halfpipe : “Waste my time / waste my life / while I sit and wait for YOU”, punctuated by fist-pumping OOH OOH’s, some impressive verticals, and the most forceful use of the word ‘stooge’ in recent memory.
Frontman Ian Shelton’s raspy shout-singing manages to carry more emotion than most vocalists I’ve heard live. By switching back and forth between melody and shouts, he wrestles sadness with rage, showing how the two are interlaced in a cause-and-effect ouroboros.
From there, the crowd obliged in echoing the chorus of Dazy collab Pressure Cooker, once again proving that simple hooks can create the most audience engagement.
A couple songs later, the arpeggiated lead of My Friends Are Having a Hard Time, rang out. The band somberly brought to life what I would consider to be one of my favorite songs of the decade, and the undisputed champion among songs to cry to in my car. Ian has said of the song that it’s about powerlessness in the face of others’ pain while still expressing a desire to help. The inability to control a sadness that seems out of your hands, the thin line between being normal and totally off-the-rails. The feeling that any of your successes are at the expense of others going through a hard time. These lyrics highlight our individual problems we all are struggling with are shared behind a masculine facade: “I haven’t / cried a day in my life / or I, / I cry all the time”. Same brother.
The transition from the first-person problems to acknowledging ‘my friends’ towards the end of the song, reflects that everyone is dealing with shared problems individually, which seemed especially poignant, and very cathartic to scream along with a crowd– even made me feel a little less alone.
Later, the grungy singsong chorus of Never F*cked Up Once gave an opportunity for the whole audience to stretch their vocal chords. Very High offered some profound solace of numbing yourself to a harsh reality: “I’ve been feeling pretty down / so I get / very high”. Sometimes poetry is simple. The ferocious riffage of Think Less, “You could kill me right now… List of people I’ve f*cked over… think less of me, and I agree” : following frustration, rage, to their logical ends, then flipping that hatred towards yourself. The kind of masochistic self-pity that can only be believed when screamed. Idk. I think it’s deep.
After a stretch of several older tunes, Ian explained their last-minute headlining status forced them to have to dust off some older tracks they hadn’t played in a moment, explaining that they had to rehearse some older material to fill out the past couple headlining slots, including some deeper cuts from All Roads Lead to the Gun and two songs from their first release, My Life is Over.
The open-chord angst of Stuck in a Spin, the aggressive melancholy of Fell On My Head, the powerful bark of fan favorite Ain’t No Flowers, all rounded out their set paying homage to more DIY roots and pandemic-era pressures that are easy to take for granted a couple years later. Nothing felt like filler in an energy-packed hour.
The closer of the set was the explosive Big Disappointment, the song that first made me a fan. “I’m addicted to rage… force of nature… PAIN! A relationship stain/ and it stains / and it stains…” Something about the stutter-stop riffs and delayed gratitude towards the chorus told me this band had something special, even before they re-recorded it to accommodate Ian’s more impressive vocal delivery on their debut LP.
Considering Life Under the Gun packs in 12 songs in under 28 minutes, it was no surprise MG’s 18-song set blazed by in what felt like under an hour. It left me hungry for more in a way conducive to a young band with a ton of room to grow.
While Shelton’s previous bands like Regional Justice Center or S.W.A.T. seem steeped in heavier, nearly grindcore traditions, and may not scream ‘Taco Bell commercial’, Militarie Gun fits in with bands like Turnstile, Drug Church or Fiddlehead, whose mainstream appeal is undoubtable. (side note- Ian has teased recording new music with Regional Justice Center on the band’s AMA, which leaves this young man very excited).
To me, Militarie Gun seems like the kind of accessible hardcore that could really turn a lot of people into fans of heavier music…Their hooks catch you, their anger keeps it interesting, and their live show sells it. This is the kind of band that can show kids that screaming about your problems is a totally valid way to deal with them.
