A glob of spit has been dangling from Ricky Claudon's chin for almost a minute. With his arms waving in the air and eyes closed tight, Claudon and his Pleasureboaters bandmates—

drummer Tim Cady and bassist Erik Baldwin—scream the anthemic breakdown to "Elliptical Realism" to the dance party crowded up to the Tractor stage. Despite the wiry frontman's aggressive, back-and-forth guitar thrashing, the mass of saliva just... won't... drop.

The dance-punk kids amassed before the band haven't noticed—they're too busy crashing into one another like drunken bumper cars. Even the older crowd in the back, the ones usually standing unimpressed like they've seen everything worth seeing, are bobbing their heads with their eyes locked on Claudon, completely ignoring the beer in their hands that's getting warmer by the minute.

Over the past six months, Pleasureboaters have received the kind of attention from local tastemakers that's reserved for the newest up-and-coming local acts. But they're not a new band at all: Claudon, Cady, and Baldwin have been friends since high school ("friends" is relative—Cady insists Claudon used to make fun of him all the time), and they've been playing together as Pleasureboaters for over two years. It's hard for them to find a niche with their sound—they thrash, but they're not a thrash band; they rock, but they're not a rock band; they're really fucking noisy, but their sound, though experimental, isn't as messy as a noise band.

"I don't really know if there's a spot for us [in the music scene]," says Baldwin. "That's not to say we can't succeed, but there's not a lot of precedent for us."

"Yeah, it's strange—we never really felt like part of a music community," Cady adds. "We just hop around, but we've met a lot of interesting, supportive people."

"Whenever you read about us, people are always using these superlative adjectives and comparing us to these bands, but none of it really makes any sense," Baldwin continues. "I guess it's punk rock, but I feel like if we were supereasy to describe, I wouldn't be as interested in it as I am. I want to feel like I can condone what we're attempting to do."

¡Gross!, their debut full-length released earlier this month on Don't Stop Believin' Records, doesn't offer up any easy answers, either. As for the title, Claudon explains, "'Gross' is just a wonderful expletive. It has a finality to it. I think all album names should have a succinct finality to them. Not like Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I'm not knocking that album, but it's a little too verbose. I like succinct."

Though it might be indefinable, their sound is certainly succinct. ¡Gross! is a blistering collection of songs that feel too well composed to be experimental and too in the moment to be at all planned. Some carry a dance-heavy backbeat while others swing more loosely, and they almost all have a moment of climax that reaches brain-blowing proportions. Claudon's bratty vocals bring the familiar bite of Mclusky, but their rhythms are more chaotic than the defunct Welsh band—the music is heavier and faster with a celebratory vibe that just begs to be performed in front of a live audience.

The band have shaped their compositions through years of practice and almost nine months of writing and recording, but they do admit to having a mission statement from the beginning.

"I think about bands like Animal Collective, Fiery Furnaces, and Deerhoof, and you don't know what to make of that stuff," Cady says. "It's catchy and it's beautiful and then at the same time this stuff comes out of nowhere and you're like, 'What is this?'

"I've always had this notion of wanting to fuck up the fuckers," he continues. "As kind of a joke, you know, let's fuck up the fuckers!"

Who are the fuckers?

"Everybody!" Cady says.

Me?

"For sure. And me!" Baldwin says.

So we're all fuckers, and Pleasureboaters are trying to fuck us up?

"Yes."

Consider yourself fucked, Seattle. recommended