New album from US punk band: The thing with the new Team Dresch record

The adjective iconic has been used excessively lately to describe pop phenomena that were once important so that they can be so again today. Skepticism is therefore appropriate when a band is constantly given this label, especially a band that hardly appears in the top ten lists of the most important punk albums in major music magazines, even though they have eternal cult status among many fans.

In the case of the US queer punk band Team Dresch, the announcement of a new work rightly caused great excitement. 30 years after the release of the last studio album, “Furthermore” marks a new beginning and finally continues an unfinished story.

Founded in 1993 by namesake Donna Dresch in Olympia, Washington, USA, Team Dresch were deeply rooted in the queer punk and fanzine scene. With the albums “Personal Best” (1995) and “Captain my Captain” (1996), they soon reached an audience far beyond this limited scene. The particular intensity of the music was one reason, the focus on making marginalized identities tangible in the song lyrics perhaps even more important.

Team Dresch: “Furthermore” (Jealous Butcher/Red Eye/Bertus) live: September 20th Mainz “Already Beautiful”, September 21st Oberhausen “Compressed Air”, September 22nd. Berlin, “New Future”, continues

Long before it was possible to exchange ideas among like-minded people on social media, Team Dresch offered young people from major US cities to German provincial towns enormous potential for identification between safe space and riot. For the recordings and the upcoming European tour, all original band members got together again: Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson on guitar and vocals, Dresch on bass and guitar and Marcéo Martinez and Melissa York on drums.

“Furthermore” updates the quintet's attitude in the face of a present that is characterized worldwide by a shift to the right, a rollback of sexual self-determination and hate attacks on queer people. “Our love offends you, fuck you, our bodies are a threat to you,” is how the combative song “Growing Underground” addresses the new right and at the same time rejects their intimidation tactics: “You’re so scared of us – you should be.”

It's no surprise that the production on the new album sounds cleaner and the guitars scream less than in the early 90s. The drasticity and urgency of the Team-Dresch sound remains unchanged and has been gently modernized by producer Greg Griffith, for example when post-rock passages with echoing guitars and moderate vocal effects (“I’ve Really Become Some Thing”) drift into previously unheard flatness.

Nevertheless, the classic team thrashing bustle dominates, breaking up fast alternative rock riffs with halftime verses and ending in pounding punk energy (“And Now Your Face”). Unlike many of their colleagues in the riot grrrl genre, Team Dresch never relied on straight riffs, but instead constructed complex structures from abrupt changes between noise rock and gentle polyphony. The songs are still held together by melodic bass lines and virtuoso drums, whose advanced snare rolls always somehow make them sound faster than comparable bands.

The debut album “Personal Best” in particular is considered a model of explosive punk energy, with the opening song “Fagetarian and Dyke” as a gateway into an aesthetic of urgency. In comparison, “Furthermore” starts off more cautiously, but with the intricate rhythm of the pre-release single “One Song” it makes it clear that the songwriting is currently at least as smart. Lyrically, “One Song” alludes to the album’s cross-generational potential: “Some people say you only write one song / And that feels true / And I do it for you / The lonely young one / That was me.”

Solidarity in queer families and networks has always been the central theme of the band and remains an important message on “Furthermore”. It doesn't necessarily have to be aggressive. The division of living space into interior and exterior spaces is a consistent motif in the lyrics and charges Team Dresch with the important function of punk as an emotional vehicle for anger, but also vulnerability.

The protagonists in the song lyrics stay in rooms, listen to music, watch television, have sex and know about the need for mutual support as protection against the aggression of the outside world. What may sound banal was a sensation on the 1995 debut, as it explicitly celebrated lesbian sexuality as well as heartache, depression and fear of repression.

From the very beginning, Team Dresch's texts offered identification potential, a world of imagination in which many people can find themselves. “I know they are not for me, I know and yet I believe that I can understand them,” Tocotronic summarized this worldview and contributed to the band's popularity in this country with their homage song “The Thing with the Team Dresch Platte”.

Long before body politics and the rights of trans and non-binary people were discussed in pop songs, Team Dresch packed their observations into their lyrics, sometimes with quiet humor, sometimes with a directness that can without exaggeration be described as life-saving: "Don't kill yourself because people can't deal with your brilliance / Sometimes I can't remember why I want to live / But I think of all the freaks and I don't want to miss this."

“Still your Room” is one of the current songs with a focus on the private retreat as a safe space, albeit as a setting for a breakup. Of course, “Furthermore” also features stories of love, farewell and heartbreak. Combining heartbreak with political commitment and ultimately always drawing a constructive, positive attitude from the direct confrontation with one's own way of getting along in society has always been Team Dresch's strength.

Because they sound as energetic as ever, their new album “Furthermore” makes you particularly excited for the upcoming concerts. Whether you see the US band as iconic, groundbreaking, personally important or have just discovered it for yourself: It's great that Team Dresch are back.