Meteor Police - Death Is So Permanent

Meteor Police jokingly call their sound “post something.” The Brick, New Jersey quartet lands somewhere between post-punk and ’90s post-hardcore, occupying a space the band describes as too heavy for indie rock and too soft for punk. Their new album, Death Is So Permanent, arrives August 28 through Mint 400 Records, preceded by the album-closing single “Unwanted In July.”

Meteor Police consists of bassist Bill Pompeo, guitarist Dustin Schoonmaker, drummer Justin Wright, and vocalist Shawn Clancy. Pompeo and Clancy had previously played together in the hardcore band VSSLS, and Clancy recruited Schoonmaker, whom he had known since fifth grade, for the new project. Schoonmaker initially joined on bass before switching to guitar, while Pompeo moved to bass for what was supposed to be a temporary arrangement and decided to stay there. Wright entered the picture through a recommendation from Pompeo’s guitar teacher, who knew him from Lakehouse Music Academy. The band’s name was already picked out, borrowed from the adventure game Maniac Mansion.

Their different tastes help explain the difficulty of assigning Meteor Police a single genre. Clancy draws from Unwound and The Blood Brothers, Pompeo from Deftones and Pantera, Schoonmaker from Les Savy Fav and The Minutemen, and Wright from bands including King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and Thee Oh Sees. The group cites Fugazi, Les Savy Fav, and Q and Not U as its clearest collective reference points with nods to more contemporary post-punk groups like Shame, Protomartyr, and Cheekface as well. The band also draws from Ocean County’s small but resourceful punk scene, where shows have survived in VFW halls, fire stations, community centers, and suburban basements. It has since found support in neighboring Asbury Park without losing its connection to where it began.

For Death Is So Permanent, Meteor Police set out to write shorter songs without scaling anything else back. Their early material carried traces of surf rock and frequently stretched beyond five minutes; the new record gets to the point faster while pushing further toward pop, intensity, movement, and intricate arrangements. The lyrics retain the band’s irony, sarcasm, and self-deprecation, though the single and “Invalid Geography” leave more room for vulnerability. Elsewhere, the group takes aim at conservative political scam artists and rejects familiar rock conventions, including traditional love songs and the genre’s strange recurring obsession with the state of California. The finished record was recorded by Rudy Meier (Bristler, Yawn Mower) at Yung Bull Recording in Brick and mastered by Pat Noon at Eight Sixteen Recording.