Wretch Like Me

Wretch Like Me kicked off the New Millennium in grand style as three-fifths of its membership either quit, were arrested, or were kicked out. Remaining members Abe Brennan (vocals) and Trevor Lanigan (guitar), no strangers to adversity, having played together for years in My Name (the Pacific Northwest’s answer to the Victims Family), began trolling for a rhythm section. No sooner had one been unearthed, adversity (putting it mildly) struck again in the form of a cancerous brain tumor inside Trevor’s head. Two major surgeries and a year of chemotherapy and radiation treatments later, Trevor strolled from a hospital back into the practice room. Resumption of musical activities commenced, the result of which is the I Am Become Death&Mac226; full-length CD, an apt if somber title borrowed from the lips of J. Robert Oppenheimer via an ancient Hindu text that he mouthed after the first successful detonation of the atom bomb. "Atom Bomb" is not an un-apt description of Wretch Like Me’s sound, though, with the new four-piece format, the band is exploring quiet dynamics and slower, heavier tempos they had heretofore ignored. This resultant batch of tunes is ambitious yet staid: Too punk for the rock crowd, too rock for the punk crowd, and the indie kids just shake their heads. This is a band that personifies what "independent" used to mean before the wholesale homogenization of music as we know it today took place in the ’90s. Resigned to the fact that the next catastrophe is surely right around the corner and trading on a working philosophy that can only be described as "anti-momentum&Mac226;" Wretch Like Me have fashioned a four-point plan for a Pyrrhic victory:

1. Have most of your band members quit, get arrested or kick them out.
2. Get cancer.
3. Take two years off.
4. Get back on your Pontiac and ride, Pontiac, Ride!