I have no idea why Boston’s Blank Stare packed it in. The band was around for a few years after the start of this new millennia, it released a few singles and a long player, fitting in pretty well with its town’s musical history, toured Europe and no there’s nothing else. Maybe gigging around Europe was the pay off. It certainly would feel like it. But after seeing how wide spread underground music – here straight edged hardcore – it’s confusing as to why anyone would snuff out a band this good. Granted, people involved in aggressive musics of any kind, rock based, jazz based or other wise, all seem to have some personality defect making it, at times, difficult to be around. That probably didn’t happen with these positive minded dudes, but who knows.
Anyway, after tracking down the ensembles, self titled long player, which you can download gratis, I was struck with how much good music Blank Stare was able to reference, accidentally or not. Already mentioning Boston’s hardcore lineage – SSD, et all – is obviously ground zero. But in the singer’s intense growl, almost spoken at times, there’s a healthful dose of Connecticut’s the Pist. Yeah, that’s an obtuse reference to levy, especially on a group of this nature. “Conversation Useless,” though, sounds like just about anything the Pist did. It just didn’t have anything to do with killing animals. Instead, these Bostonians basically rephrase the Grateful Dead’s most useful lyrical contribution to twentieth century poetry: “Don’t dominate the rap, jack, if you’ve got nothing new to say.”
No, straight edge hardcore kids won’t, most likely, have heard that before. But that only serves to illustrate the fact that punkers and hippies still aren’t too different even if you’re in the process of putting the boot into one of ‘em.