On their seveth album the Portland pop-punks remain deliberately dumb and definitely catchy.
Sounding like they’ve hooked themselves up to the mains, Mean Jeans have come to hotwire our hearts with another dose of primo pop punk.
The Portland trio of Junior Jeans, Billy Jeans and Jeans Wilder have an electrical way about them and – unlike some veterans of the genre – show no signs of slowing down on their seventh album ‘Blasted’.
Formed 15 years ago, the band packs exactly that many songs into little more than half an hour, with only the relatively extravagant final track ‘Pop Punk Casualty’ stepping over the three-minute mark.
The song is also one of a handful on the record that serve as meditations on the nature of punk and the lifestyle Messrs Jeans and Wilder have chosen. ‘Look What Punk’s Done to You’ also offers up some choice thoughts in that vein, training their gaze inwards for sure, but also taking a cheeky nod to the ‘X-Files’ cameo by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong.
Meanwhile, ‘Lost My Mind’ centres on a dream vision that the band’s bass player was a courtroom TV judge, a-la Judge Judy.
No longer quite as in thrall to the sound of the Ramones as they used to be, Mean Jeans continue to channel the spirit of New York’s pop punk originators with their fuel-injected tunes.
There’s the radioactive rock n roll high school of ‘Something’s Going On’, presumably the only song that’s ever been written about the cult 1986 comedy horror b-movie ‘Class Of Nuke ’Em High’.
Self-styled ‘under-thinkers anthem’ ‘I Don’t Give a Shit’ deals with what happens when records, clothes and even your phone (!) don’t mean anything anymore. But a more hyperactive hymn to ennui you’d be hard pressed to find.
And there’s little of the out-and-out goofyness of 2018’s ‘Jingles Collection’ of beer, burger and Best Western adverts. However, they’re still the same band whose ramshackle debut single, ‘Stoned 2 the Bone’, came out on Rehab records.
So the lyrical references also extend to Mike Schank’s PCP overdose story in the 1999 film ‘American Movie’, ‘Taco Bell Parking Lot’ romanticises some questionable life choices and the overindulgence of ‘Took Too Much’ has too many “oohs” for you to stay mad at it for long.
Produced and engineered by the band themselves at Portland’s Trash Treasury studio, ‘Blasted’ is deliberately dumb and definitely catchy as Mean Jeans prove that growing up doesn’t actually mean growing up, or slowing down.
‘Blasted’ is out now on Fat Wreck Chords
1. I Don’t Give a Shit Anymore
2. Let’s Go
3. Diagnosis
4. Lost My Mind
5. Blasted to the Moon
6. Something’s Going On
7. Reggie
8. Taco Bell Parking Lot
9. Look What Punk’s Done to You
10. Slugs
11. Break up With You
12. Took Too Much
13. I Don’t Know What I Did Last Summer
14. Living Large on a Credit Card
15. Pop Punk Casualty
Follow Mean Jeans on Their Socials
Need more Punk In Your Life?
Live review: Guana Batz at Facebar, Reading, 3rd July 2025
It’s forty years since Guana Batz released their debut ‘Held Down to Vinyl…At Last’ and there has been a seismic change in the music scene
EP review: Petrichor release their self-titled debut
The kids are alright, folks. Washington DC quartet Petrichor are probably sick of journos like me mentioning their age (all between 13 and 15 years
Terminal Sleep/Spaced, London New Cross Inn, 8th July 2025
Truly, Real Life Presents has been on a roll recently, with a week of great hardcore shows now coming to a close with a beast
Shake Some Acton gig #102, London The Lexington, 5th July 2025
There are plenty of gigs happening tonight, including a fair few rock n’ roll ones, but we rest assured that we’ve made the right choice
Gig Review: Pussy Riot, New Age Doom, Dolly Min, in The Hague, the Netherlands
On 26th June 2025, Pussy Riot brought their Riot Days show to het Paard in the Hague. Canadians New Age Doom and local punks Dolly
From Post-Punk to Present Tense, Vision Meets Violets in Leeds’ Gothic Temple
Leeds’ music scene breaths grit. Warehouse raves, postpunk rebellions and goth nights have been its lifeblood for decades. The Warehouse hosted Vision Video and The
An occasional writer on punk rock.
Click on Dom’s photo for more of his articles
Did you know that we are 100% DIY? We run our own game. No one dictates to us, and no one drives what we can or cannot put on our pages – and this is how we plan to continue!
