DESPERATE ACTS

When you hear the words "punk band from the Midwest," you expect one thing.  But Desperate Acts zig when you expect a zag.  At their core, they’re a Minneapolis punk band and that’s inarguable.  However, they add a DC hardcore willingness to change tempos and find unexpected melodies and still keep a Bay Area punk confidence in loud and powerful three-part harmonies.  The Midwest punk familiarity is still there on the surface, but it is rarely predictable. 

Desperate Acts’ previous bands seem incongruent with their sound at first, so it’s not easy to tag them as “Ex-members of_______” and have that thin introductory catch phrase be relevant in any way.  While some of their bands have toured the world a few times over, their lineage includes Comeback Kid and Martyr AD and those bands aren’t immediately associated with harmony and melody like this.  But Minneapolis is an area where genres and bands have always been in a blender and it’s totally normal that fury and aggression on smashed stages across five continents could be played by the same guys where melody, harmony, and dynamics are

State Secrets was originally meant to be tracked in Boston with producer Jay Maas at Getaway Recording.  His resume includes everything from Bane and Defeater to Citizen and Title Fight (and Jennifer Rostock).  To navigate the logistics of the 2020 lockdowns,  it was instead recorded with Brian Herb at Mother of All Music in St. Paul, Minnesota after pre-production was done virtually back in Boston. Brian is normally touring doing tech and sound work for Alice in Chains these days and his roster has included everything from Helmet to Bush, but he had time to track without touring, and then Jay could work with Brian to get the mixing and mastering done.  

Releases:

"State Secrets" - November 26, 2021