Though Militiarie Gun began as a side project for Regional Justice Center’s Ian Shelton during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the band’s profile has quickly overshadowed that of the singer-drummer’s previous group. Regional Justice Center specializes in the brutal powerviolence subgenre, but Militarie Gun is more Fugazi than Minor Threat. While Shelton is prone to bellowing, he’s capable of doing it tunefully, and Militiarie Gun’s debut studio album, Life Under the Gun, is filled with prickly songs rife with peaks and valleys.
Shelton’s experience as a drummer informs much of the songwriting on the album. The clean guitars that launch “My Friends Are Having a Hard Time” suggest Midwest emo, but Militarie Gun turns hardcore’s sudden tempo changes and breakdowns into something slower and more melodic. During the verses of “Very High,” for example, the guitar dances around the rhythm section, leaving open space by sticking to a short riff until the chorus kicks in.
In a 2021 Stereogum interview, Shelton revealed that a brief period of experimentation with psychedelics helped him understand his family’s experiences with substance abuse, and “Very High” bluntly captures the impulse for self-medication: “I’ve been feeling pretty down so I get very high.” Elsewhere, “Big Disappointment” muses on other forms of dependence, describing himself as “addicted to rage…addicted to disappointment” in the wake of a failed relationship.
The songs on Life Under the Gun vary in tempo and aggressiveness, but with the exception of “See You Around,” the same vocal and guitar sounds run throughout. That track pays homage to the Beatles’s “Strawberry Fields Forever” with its distinctive mellotron flutes, though Shelton’s anger is a stark contrast to the Fab Five’s nostalgic reverie.
Militarie Gun’s faithfulness to the punk tradition of short and punchy songs keeps things moving at an exhilarating clip. Life Under the Gun rages against the forces—internal and external, real and imagined—that prevent Shelton from achieving his goals, from the nameless enemy standing in the way of the band’s creativity on “Do It Faster” to a backstabbing frenemy on “Will Logic.” But while Militarie Gun’s emotional palette may feel rooted in anger, unlike Regional Justice Center, the band’s more melodic passages strive to express it without becoming trapped by it.
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