Fentanyl’s self-titled debut album is music that forces you to have an opinion about it. It’s hardcore punk that’s fast, primal, and genuinely abrasive–not in a “your parents won’t like this” way, but rather in a “your friend with a Black Flag tattoo who regularly attends basement punk shows might still find this to be a bit too much” way. The album is 14 tracks in 15 minutes, with no distortion pedals in sight: just guitar amps turned up so paint-peelingly loud that the notes turn into knives.
Everything about Fentanyl feels at once perfectly calibrated and shot from the hip. That may seem like an impossible needle to thread, but that narrow space between hyper-precise vision and endearing looseness is where the best punk music often lies. The instrumentals are blisteringly fast, coiled tight but still unstable–like a rubber band wound over and over til it’s about to snap. The vocals are spit-flecked and unhinged but delivered in deliberate, biting cadences. From the songwriting, to the recording, to the album art, to even their name, Fentanyl have a determined, yet snot-nosed quality that recalls how ‘80s hardcore pioneers were often defined by equal parts purposeful provocation and instinctual reaction. “It’s not insanely deep,” vocalist Kenny Turner says of the San Francisco-based band’s moniker. “No punk band name should be. It was just a relevant topic based on the epidemic in San Francisco and many other major cities–like one of those things I literally saw everyday when I lived in The Tenderloin or saw headlines in the newspaper. People either love it or hate it, which in my opinion, is a good thing.”
Fentanyl (Turner, along with bassist Thomas Sherry, drummer Josh Mendoza, and guitarists Carlos Cruz, Nathaniel Punty, and Derek Kanowsky) thrives on this innate divisiveness still at the heart of punk and hardcore. It’sa world of music that, at its best, welcomes anyone, but also just isn’t for everyone. “I would say the record is a racket,” explains Turner. “It’s loud like any hardcore record should be, it’s jarring, it’s hella bright, and even though the guitars aren’t very distorted, it still has moments where it’s heavy.” Distortion might seem like a key component to most music under the wide umbrella of punk, but Fentanyl favor sharply shiny, treble-cranked tones that somehow scratch the same caustic itch as a dimed out drive pedal. “I grew up listening to punk on shitty, tinny stock car speakers so I always kinda always wanted Fentanyl to sound like you were listening to it in a 2003 Honda Civic,” says Turner. “I do think I’ve taken that a bit to the extreme in terms of tone, but at the end of the day it sets us apart.”
Tracks like the vicious opening one-two punch of “Or So I Thought” and “Blind” introduce Fentanyl’s harsh sound, as well as Turner’s equally cutting lyricism. The entire album is imbued with a feeling of existential desperation, the kind of unbridled expression for which hardcore was made. “When I’m feeling distressed, I just write down how I feel,” says Turner. “It’s the usual stressors of getting older–you have an ‘adult breakup,’ you have to move, your rent is getting more expensive, you have a falling out with your friends, a family member passes away, everything is changing slowly and quickly at the same time. I tend to fixate and overwhelm myself just thinking about everything.” Mid-album standout “Hyper Focus” cuts to the core of this idea with Turner roaring just two lines over a stomping riff: “Forced into another thought / I wish it would just stop, stop.”
Just eight minutes later Fentanyl does stop with the furious closer “Silver Hour.” The song careens into a breakdown that’s at once jangling and crushing as Turner’s throat-shredding lament barks, “Why do I feel this way? / I can’t remember.” It’s a strangely effective sentiment: sometimes things just aren’t right. And it makes for a fitting ending to the album–a blunt force idea in a blunt force song, performed with such visceral conviction that it might alienate the unprepared. But that’s the point. If you can stand it, you’re gonna love it.
