Life Stinks

Life Stinks

You'll Never Make It

S-s Records

Present-day San Francisco is a beautiful city but also a hyper-active, tech-grinding rat race. The money chase is on 24/7, the rats hustling for tiny morsels of cheese, praying for the day when a big hunk o’ cheddar falls from the sky. If you’ve lived in the city for a good while and are some creative type or working Joe or Jane, you can be overwhelmed by it all. Life Stinks’s second album You’ll Never Make It is a perfect portrait of that mind-frame. Feelings of anger, self-doubt and vindictiveness weave though a sonic template that shifts from a Flipper / Fang arms-a-swingin’ groove (as on the title track) to standout Velvet poppers (“Anchor”), Stooge-oid stomping (“Sliding Down a Wire”), and outright demented thuds (“I’m a Weed”). And then just when you are ready to take out a few windows, Life Stinks slyly slides in a gentle number which reminds you that the band paints from a complete emotional palette. You’ll Never Make It is a great followup to their 2013 debut, which was called “album of the year” by some yuks at Maximum Rocknroll and earned high praise at Raven Sings the Blues, It’s Psychedelic Baby, Terminal Boredom and other places. Also like the first album, You’ll Never Make It is produced by Kelley Stoltz and Mikey Young (Total Control).

Life Stinks

Life Stinks

S-s Records

***As Robvertogo of Terminal Boredom wrote, LIFE STINKS is "San Francisco's last punk band." Firmly standing in the puddle created by Crime, Flipper, Fang, and the Fuck-Ups, Life Stinks is the proper negative reaction to the rapid take over of San Francisco by cyber douchebags. Cool, dark, bad attitude with a groove (and a nod to Velvet Underground). They have a single on Totally Punk which is aces, a nice slap in the face. Producers MIKEY YOUNG and KELLEY STOLTZ have taken that face slap and turned it into a gut punch. Blow for blow, this is one of the best punk rock & roll albums to come out of the Bay Area in at least a decade.”