Perennial's new LP will bring you right back to early 2000s dance-punk (stream it)

If all this talk about the new Meet Me in the Bathroom documentary has you in the market for some early 2000s-style dance-punk, look no further than the new Perennial album, In The Midnight Hour, which comes out next week and premieres in this post. The band’s list of influences on the album include Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Blood Brothers, Swing Kids, Black Eyes, The Faint, Refused, Le Tigre, The Hives, The Rapture, Fugazi, pageninetynine, Eric Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, and more, and if you can picture all of that swirled together, you’ll get a very good idea of what this fiery LP sounds like.

“With ‘In The Midnight Hour’, we really set out to make a headphone album you could dance to, something that was kinetic and exciting, but that would also reward spending some time with, so that each listen was new somehow,” the band tells us. “A lot of our attention in the studio was devoted to finding new layers and new ways to go about making a punk record; so sometimes it’s a loud guitar, but sometimes it’s a drum machine, or a vibraphone, or a tambourine, or a trumpet. The idea was to look at these 1-2 minute songs as collages, where we could draw on all the stuff we love: 60s garage rock, soul, post-bop, dance music. We’d get the structure of the song, and then the three of us and [producer] Chris [Teti, of The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die] would look for ways to surprise ourselves. The hope was to make a record that was fun and exciting and a bit impressionistic too.”

Fun, exciting, and a bit impressionistic indeed! This whole thing rips and you can stream it (and see the band’s full list of albums that influenced it) below…

Albums That Influenced In The Midnight Hour:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell
Blood Brothers – Crimes
Eric Dolphy – Out To Lunch
Be Your Own Pet – S/T
Swing Kids – Discography
Black Eyes – Cough
The Sonics – Here Are The Sonics
The Faint – Wet From Birth
pageninetynine – Document # 8
Sam Cooke – Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1963
The Creation – We Are Paintermen
Refused – The Shape Of Punk To Come
Ornette Coleman – Ornette On Tenor
Le Tigre – This Island
Head Wound City – S/T
The Hives – Tyrannosaurus Hives
Otis Redding – Live In Europe
Broadcast – Ha Ha Sound
Some Girls – The DNA Will Have Its Say
The Clash – Sandinista!
The Rapture – Echoes
Phantom Planet – S/T
The Temptations – Gettin’ Ready
The Jam – Sound Affects
Don Cherry – Eternal Rhythm
Fugazi – The Argument
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues
Beat Happening – Black Candy
Bratmobile – Pottymouth
Sonic Youth – Dirty
Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
Suicide – Suicide
Stereolab – Dots and Loops
The Beatles – Revolver