You better not have any plans for this Sunday, May 18th, because Cloak/Dagger will be stopping by Generation Records for an in-store performance. The free show begins at 4 P.M. and space will be very limited. Get there early, shop around, and then enjoy one of the best bands on the scene today…for free! Check out Generation’s Myspace for any further updates.
Here are the top ten reasons why you should drop everything you are currenty doing and go buy the new Cloak/Dagger record We Are, out now on Jade Tree.
10. Album opener “Bended Knee” sounds like a b-side off any Hot Snakes record. This is definitely not a bad thing. In fact, more people should be trying to write songs like Hot Snakes or any John Reis associated band.
9. With their debut full-length, Cloak/Dagger have officially moved to the front of the class along with their peers Government Warning, Career Suicide, Dustheads, and Fucked Up. Anyone who says that “punk is dead” should be punched in the ear.
8. Pardon the cliche ”Black Flag meets Drive Like Jehu” malarkey but lead singer Jason Mazzola’s vocal approach does have a very Keith Morris-era Black Flag feel to it. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
If you’re like me and can’t wait for September 11th to roll around and bring the goodness of We Are by Cloak/Dagger, the awesome folks at Jade Tree are streaming the entire bad boy for you.
Check it out here.
I’m not one to really be impressed by band merch but Cloak/Dagger’s tshirts are what first caught my attention. At MD/DC/VA shows I would always see at least two people wearing a tshirt emblazoned with the Cloak/Dagger logo but in an array of colors: yellow, orange, pink, red, etc. I finally got the nerve to ask someone what the band was like and he told me a mix between Black Flag and Hot Snakes. I figured that I’d check them out myself.
Last October at The Fest V in Gainsville, FL I finally got to see them play and I understood why they might have an affinity with color. Like a kid walking around in a bright yellow shirt in a sea of black and white, Cloak/Dagger is an anomaly. Their garage rock n roll tinged songs are aggressive yet rhythmic enough to actually dance to which sets them apart within a genre where music is almost always too fast or too angry to shake your hips too. I stayed around to pick up their CD after their set but they didn’t have one out. The only music that was available to buy was a 7″ and that was about a year old.
Quenching our thirst for new tunes (somewhat), RVA’s Cloak/Dagger have released some songs for us to chew on. Piñata Breaks, Demo Takes is a digital-only release that combines the band’s recent Piñata 7-inch, along with demo tracks and one previously unreleased song. The album is available on iTunes, emusic, and other digital music providers.
