Milhouse

Milhouse erupted from the mid-1990s Long Island, NY hardcore scene like the rabid, unwanted offspring of shuttered strip malls and 24-hour road rage. Equal parts Born Against, Drive Like Jehu, Bauhaus, and Black Flag, they injected a nervous, raw energy into a suburban subculture just beginning to find a voice. A Milhouse show in 1997 was mania and misanthropy on display, not a fun party band or a football game dressed up as a CBGB matinee. Obscenity In The Milk documents this, with Artie Philie’s shrieking, stream-of-consciousness lyrics viciously strangled by Brian Meehan’s hauntingly discordant guitars in a deranged death spiral that’s as uncomfortable to hear as it was to watch. And while multiple personnel changes around Artie and Brian over the band’s brief existence are testament to the discord and discomfort that defined its music, the stark collage of Obscenity is brutally completed by Rachel Rosen (SFA) on bass, Justin Brannan (Indecision) on guitar, and Greg Collins (Radio 4) on drums. Three decades have seen similar bands come and go; a parade of so-called “screamo” and “post-hardcore” performers desperately trying, as Milhouse did, to articulate the inexplicable. But after 25 years, Obscenity stands as a crystalline moment of precision and chaos seared together, never at home under any genre’s banner. Birthed by the NYHC womb, Milhouse came out biting. Obscenity depicts the band’s teeth at their sharpest.