Straw Man Army | |
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Background information | |
Origin | Brooklyn, New York [1] |
Genres | |
Years active | 2018–present |
Labels |
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Members | Owen Deutsch Sean Fentress |
Straw Man Army is a punk rock duo based in Brooklyn, New York. [1] [5] The band has released four albums since their founding in 2018. [6]
The duo first met in high school in Chicago and formed Straw Man Army in 2018. [7] Their first album, Age of Exile, was released in October 2020. [8] Its lyrics address the legacy of U.S. colonialism, [9] [10] and the band donated the profits from album sales to The Red Nation, a Native American advocacy group. [11] [12]
In 2021, Straw Man Army recorded a soundtrack for Her Majesty's Ship, an experimental 2019 film based on Charles Darwin's 1839 memoir The Voyage of the Beagle. [13]
Their 2022 album SOS was named by The Washington Post , NPR, and Bandcamp as one of the best albums of the year. [14] [15] [16] [17] The band donated profits from sales of SOS to Roots Unbound, a prison abolition nonprofit. [14]
Their 2024 album Earthworks was met with continued critical acclaim, [4] [18] [19] [20] being named to several year-end lists. [21] [22] Straw Man Army has stated that Age of Exile, SOS, and Earthworks are intended as a trilogy focused on the past, present, and future, respectively. [23] [24]
Straw Man Army is known for its DIY ethic, [25] [26] its politically charged lyrics, [3] [27] and its experimental use of ambient sound. [28] [29] The band's anarcho-punk [9] musical style incorporates elements of psychedelic rock, [30] krautrock, [31] and jazz. [19] [29] Straw Man Army shares members with D4MT labelmates Kaleidoscope and Tower 7. [11]
Fentress and Deutsch have described CAN, the Ventures, and the Apostles as some of their biggest influences. [24] Critics have compared the band to Wire, [1] [18] the Ex, [25] [22] Zounds, [29] [32] [33] This Heat, [20] [23] and Crass, [9] [22] while also noting its "sparse, driven" sound [25] that resists easy categorization. [32]
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