Our “Cut of the Day” section is busted at the moment, but here’s one for your enjoyment.

My first thought, upon hearing the Mean Jeans, was that the group reminded me a lot of the Ramones. That was probably your first thought, too.

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But “Born on a Saturday Night” is even more Ramones than the Ramones. All the usual adjectives for the classic New York punk quartet apply doubly to the Jeans: Fast? Check. Bratty? Check. Adolescent? Check. Catchy? Check. “Born on a Saturday Night” is all those things and more—it kick-starts without warning and runs full speed, like its protagonist, from the cradle to an early grave. One can imagine basement and bar crowds exploding into chaos just as fast.

But the Mean Jeans new disc, Are You Serious?, integrates the feeling of other groups as well as the Ramones: It has a Toy Dolls hyperactivity and traces of Screeching Weasel harmony. The Jeans give a nod to CCR on “Case Race,” (singing “Hey tonight!” alongside handclaps and furious chords), and they get self-referential often, talking about jeans with the frequency that most bands talk about love. “Slime Time” contains the album’s weirdest departure: A sudden transition into what sounds like a bootlegged Vietnamese karaoke disc.

But most impressively, this disc (out early next month) sounds impressively vintage. Lots of bands sound like the Ramones, but not a lot of bands really nail sounding like the Ramones right down to the oh-oh harmonies. That’s what gets me about these dudes. The Mean Jeans take the challenge of sounding like their biggest influence seriously, but they’ve got a spirit all to themselves.

The Mean Jeans play Slabtown Friday with Pure Country Gold, Jail and more. Then they play East End on Monday with Davila 666.

Links:
The Mean JeanSpace
Dirtnap Records

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