I’m rubber, you’re glue, no one cares, ’cause Empty Markets are Stainless Steel, here to murder you. That’s what the blaring, vehement punk on this Austin trio’s debut sounds like, anyway. On the opening title track’s hollered refrain, Drew Schmitz likens himself to a flash of metal, a knife lodged in flesh. That adrenaline rush spreads across 12 songs, beneath which ferments thoughtful, illustrative storytelling. “Home Invasion” spews imagery of people as worker bees in a dystopian colony, and “New Religion” glows the apathy emanating from a computer screen. Stainless Steel blurs the line between both – if there’s even a line at all.

***.5

This article appears in May 13 • 2016.

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