Spider Bite: The Rainbow and the Dove

On their latest release, You’ve Changed Record co-founders Steven Lambke and Daniel Romano flip the script from their current endeavours in folk-inspired songcraft. Alongside Romano’s brother, Ian (a part of Daniel’s backing band, Outfit, and also of Career Suicide), the trio serve up a wonderful dose of punk as the wonderfully coined Spider Bite.

Releasing their 2020 self-titled debut to little fanfare in the depths of lockdown, the members of Spider Bite have always been deeply rooted in punk and hardcore. Daniel Romano a part of ’00s shredders, Attack In Black, while Lambke basically owned the same era with gritty post-hardcore heroes, The Constantines, who remain one of the most vital acts since the turn of the century.

Together alongside Ian Romano, Spider Bite recapture the young energy of punk and hardcore, with record collections and open-hearted homage on offer with their follow up LP, The Rainbow and the Dove.

Truth Marks: In Conversation with Steven Lambke

Resuming the withering blasts of noise that dominated their self-titled debut, The Rainbow and the Dove is 14 minutes of no-nonsense deeds, sharpening hardcore’s principles of message music; in this case, the scourge of colonialism and environmental decay, not to mention the ruinous effects that money has on, well, just about everything! In the words of the band themselves, “This is our music.”

And it begins with the riff-a-rolla circle pit fever of Smashed Glass, which drips with Damaged-era Black Flag scorn. Following is Human Body Human Brain, and with Ian’s machine-gun drumming, Lambke rises above it in a Rollins-like search and destroy mission.

The storm clouds rumble on Fibreglass City, while the skies open up on Garbage Night – a track that sees Spider Bite ripping out sonic chaos from the bellows of a scrapheap.

With Ian’s pounding double-kick action, Hopeful Monsters and Air-conditioned Houses sees Spider Bite surprisingly shift the needle away from punk and more on the fringes of traditional metal!

It doesn’t last long, though, with the frenetic tracer-bullet speed of Splatter Test. Not only does it match the ferocity of its title, but also punk behemoth, OFF!, who currently play as fast as anyone in the realms of punk and hardcore. Meanwhile, the title tracks sees Lambke slowing it down, accompanied by Daniel’s rhythm that is reminiscent of heroes from a different sound world: AC/DC. Again, it’s short-lived as we are met with a wall of gale-force noise that blows the gate clean off its hinges.

The Poison Arrows: Crime and Soda

You’d have thought a punk band would have already adopted the idea of finishing an album with a song as aptly titled as Parting Shot; not the case, it’s all Spider Bite’s, and like the preceding nine tracks, the song does its title justice and more.

Punk and hardcore seem to be among the few scenes in the underground that are currently experiencing some traction. With The Rainbow and the Dove, whilst perhaps unlikely practitioners, Spider Bite prove that it’s just not the younger crop unleashing a vital urgency. The seasoned campaigners are matching them to boot, and it’s all through the lens of frustration and the decaying of a creative world where making a living from it is almost non-existent.

As veterans of the underground both as musicians and label owners, Daniel Romano and Steven Lambke are at the coal face of these worrying times, and while The Rainbow and the Dove is an attempt to release the pressure valve, it’s every bit as brutal, earnest and anthemic as you’ll get in the sphere and punk and hardcore.

The Rainbow and the Dove is out now via You’ve Changed Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.