NAIL POLISH
Abrupt
(Help Yourself Records)
***1/2 (out of 5)

Music fans still mourning the premature death of Wet Paint DMM can take solace in Nail Polish, who feature the former group’s guitarist, James David Scheall (Aidan Fitzgerald and Sloane Flashman fill out the lineup). While Nail Polish don’t quite subvert rock conventions with the ferocity of Wet Paint, they certainly scar tympanic membranes with almost as much urgency. Nail Polish’s aptly titled cassette Abrupt contains eight tracks averaging under two minutes apiece, in keeping with no wave’s ethos of cutting to the chase jugular with short, shocking stabs of angsty sonics.

These songs are abristle with coiled, careening, post-no-wave truculence and disdain for Seattle’s tech-bro-ification. Swerving dynamics, accelerating tempos, guitar tones out of the Andy Gill/Ron Asheton school of flinty causticity, and acerbic lyrics that call out conformity and douchebaggery rile up feelings of righteous indignation—see especially "Chophouse Row,” which gives the evil eye to that swanky, avaricious new block on 11th Avenue between Pike and Union. In a city where too many rock bands slouch into a complacency-enabling, middelbrow amble, Nail Polish storm the gates of apathy and trigger action. Put Abrupt in your boombox and box the boom.

Nail Polish's cassette-release party happens tonight at Chop Suey.