The Problem With Kids Today Bottles The Energy On ​“Junk”

From the start of Junk, the debut album from The Problem With Kids Today, it’s all wrong, and that’s what makes it right. Four chops from an electric guitar at the beginning of the first song, ​“You’re In Love With Junk,” are supposed to set the tempo, but they don’t. The drums insist on a faster tempo, the guitar falling in. What follows is just over two minutes of building mayhem, as a heavy riff gives way to barking vocals. It’s pure party. But there’s something else going on, too. 

“You’re in love with junk,” the singer says. Is he talking about drugs, or the crap we Americans buy all the time? Or both? Does it matter? ​“Feel like my hands are tied / We’re gonna make it out alive / Feel like I’m running out of time / We’re gonna make it out alive,” he howls over the chorus.

The ping-ponging emotions, the caterwauling music, the vocals that careen from a chant to a scream, are all part of what has made The Problem With Kids Today one of New Haven’s most beloved new bands to emerge from the pandemic as clubs reopened to give bands a place to play.

Live, the band has perfected creating an atmosphere of barely controlled — and extremely entertaining — chaos. Part of what has made it so fun is the sense that it has come fully formed out of nowhere, perfectly timed to be the embodiment of people’s desire to get out and party again now that it’s at least somewhat possible to do so again (thanks, science!). But guitarist and bassist Tate Brooks and Silas Lang have actually been doing it since before the pandemic, when they performed and recorded as, well, Tate and Silas. As a duo, Tate and Silas projected the same manic energy, though with just a guitar and bass (and one bass drum, played by Silas), the vibe somewhere between folk-punk and performance art.

Reena Yu’s drums transformed that into an all-out party, letting the band wave its freak flag high. Tate’s onstage — and sometimes under-stage — antics are a big part of the band’s appeal. But underlying all of that is a big question that speaks to the longevity of the band: How’s the music?

Junk is the answer to that question. Recorded at Sans Serif Studios in downtown New Haven, the album managed to capture much of the energy of the band’s live performance. It also reveals that there’s substance behind the frenzy. The Problem With Kids Today plugs into the impulse that rock ​‘n’ roll has always had, to strip music down to the basics and then use it to go crazy. It’s the same energy that fueled garage rock, punk, and grunge, but The Problem With Kids Today don’t sound like students of rock ​‘n’ roll; they sound like the next lap around that cycle.

“Baddest Bitch” is a hop-up-and-down song celebrating the fiercest young woman in town (“Don’t you dare think to call her bitter / She just might roast your ass on Twitter”). ​“The Wright Brothers” has the band chanting lyrics over a groove that people could dance with their honeys to. ​“The Chill One” has some of the coiled energy of early New Wave without being uptight or fussy about it. ​“The Ska Song” isn’t so much a ska song as it is a song about ska, rightly recognized as one of the best kinds of music there is to party to, while ​“Power Ballad” lives up to its name as a wall of noise.

Two songs in particular, though, give those who haven’t seen the band live a chance to have a taste of their energy. ​“Fly Boy” brims with chaotic energy. But it’s ​“Fire,” clocking in at a minute and a half, that best encapsulates what The Problem With Kids Today is about. Read the lyrics by themselves, and it can come across as bitter, almost angry. But the exuberance of the music changes all that into catharsis. It turns bitterness into humor, anger into joy. 

Maybe that’s what has made The Problem With Kids Today — and kindred spirits Mightymoonchew — the right music for the specific time we live in, judging from how quickly both groups have created and connected with fans in New Haven. They’re not offering an escape from the world we live in, but a way to confront it and figure out how to have fun in the midst of it. That’s an important move. Even if we can’t do much about the monumental problems we still face as a society, maybe living well, or least as well as we can, is the best revenge.