Love Ethic return with ‘The Customer is Always Blight’, a new EP due out July 10.

The group is centred on The Inevitable Mr. Chris and drummer Anthony Capozzi, and there is very little fuss in the way they go about things. The songs are sharp, noisy and a little awkward in the right way, taking in punk, hardcore and No Wave without sounding too concerned about where one thing ends and another begins.

‘Fight You Back’ gives a good idea of the EP’s mood. It is short, hard and tightly wound, with the feeling of a band trying to get something out before it burns a hole in the floor.

<a href="https://loveethic.bandcamp.com/album/the-customer-is-always-blight">The Customer is Always Blight by Love Ethic</a>

The video was animated by Mr. Chris in collaboration with Brian Walsby, the punk cartoonist behind Manchild. It came about after an injury left Mr. Chris without the use of his left arm for four months, and that detail gives the whole thing a rather fitting back story. Instead of stopping, he found another way to work.

The EP was recorded with engineer and producer Mario Quintero of Spotlights, who also worked with Love Ethic on their version of Toni Fisher’s ‘The Big Hurt’ for the Wax Donut Records compilation ‘Day-Old Donuts’. ‘The Customer is Always Blight’ will be available digitally and on streaming platforms, with a small CD edition packaged inside a twelve-page fanzine, available from the band for postage or at their merch table.

It is the first in a new run of releases from Love Ethic, with a further collaboration with Dale Crover of Melvins and Redd Kross also planned. For now, ‘Fight You Back’ does the job nicely: quick, rough, smart and not over-explained.

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