Prison: Downstate

It’s not often a band addresses its listener directly through song, but on That’s My Noise, that’s exactly what Prison do. Not that Prison are an ordinary band, if one at all: they’re a vibe. Like the breeze, you move with it. You feel it.

The purveyors of the kind of doom-laden criminal blues John Wayne would have swallowed up like a bottle moon shine, Prison’s latest guise consists of Paul Major (Endless Boogie), Matt Lilly and Sarim Al-Rawi (both of Liquor Store). While the three began hostilities in 2017 alongside the late Sam Jayne (Love Is Laughter, Lync), since Prison have become a shamanic circus, welcoming in a swathe of ring-ins and cosmic drifters alike (Mike Fellows of Mighty Flashlight and Weak Signal’s Mike Bones among them).

The results have been supremely original and unlike anything else in the new music stratum. Their debut, Upstate, a certified, sonic storm, as Prison took a plethora of wild ideas and slammed them down on tape in what was one of the most vivid artistic tapestries released in 2023.

It was hard to gage where Prison would veer off to next (if at all), but this merry band of communal wranglers return with the equally thrilling Downstate. A sibling album? Call it what you want, but the Prison vibe continues, this time with Major, Lilly and Al-Rawi being joined by guitarists Marc Razo and Adam Reich, bassist Matt Leibowitz and trombonist Dave Smoota Smith. And it’s these new additions that help the Prison experience reach new levels.

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On Downstate, Prison condenses their protracted jams sessions into something more, well… song-based. Still untameably shambolic, where sound and recording techniques take new sharp turns (two CDJs being fed into DJ decks then dubbed down live to cassette) it all makes for Downstate being assuredly Prison. Beautifully ramshackle and uncompromisingly bespoke.

The tranquilliser rock of Millions of Armies (Wipe ’Em Out) sees Prison combing new frontiers in search of that magic seam to pass through. And led by Major, they eventually find it, as Razo and Reich’s fuzzy whig-outs render guitars on the loose, frayed, frazzled, and well-worn.

Meanwhile, the evolving fever dream that is Travelling Lady (In Prison) sees Prison channelling their inner-Tom Robbins. Sonically and thematically not a world away from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, if ever the book was adapted to film, then this would be the soundtrack to it.

Up in a Tree is rolling-through-the-tall-grass blues. With eye watering riff-a-rolla, Smith’s trombone creates the kind of unhinged freak-outs occupying the space between The Stooges and Exile’-era Stones. It’s the fun-for-all-the-family version of Prison (who’d have thought?).

It doesn’t last long, though. With backyard generator purr and added boogie, Eyes for Keys is the stuff of Coors Light and beef jerky. In actual fact, it’s Destroyer/Cookin’ with Heat‘s roguish younger brother, and with a bass line that runs through the main lines like lightening, it’s this kind of speed where Prison thrives. 

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Prison are equally emphatic when they dial it down, too. The hypnotic doom blues of That’s My Noise, like a thick, unmovable storm cloud. Think The Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead trading blows during a Hunter S. Thompson recital of Hells Angels in a one of the chapter’s club houses. Equal parts untethered and nostalgic, it’s not the only moment Prison get dewy-eyed for the past. On Made For You, the band affectionately gaze into rearview mirror, recalling the more sinister side to John Cougar Mellencamp (yeah, there was one if you didn’t blink). That side? Where the fruit punch had been laced with LSD.

The other? Well, that’s where something like In the Tall Grass lands. The most beautiful moment the band has caught on tape, it takes multiple listens to make sure you’re still in the Prison orbit. Revealing their tender side like never before with a sweet serenade out of the Matt Sweeney songbook, Prison flirt with a portal they might just pass through in future releases.

For now, though, the most part of Downstate continues the band’s wonderfully reckless version of outlaw psychedelia. The kind that makes you want to jump out of your skin. Prison was never going to make another version of Upstate, and by boiling it down to something a little easier to swallow, they’ve seamlessly moved things forward. You know those bands you want to be in? Well, Prison is one of them. The sound. The feeling. The vibe! This, friends, is a communal wrecking ball that pulls you through the bad times by simply meeting them head on.

Downstate is out via Drag City. Purchase from Bandcamp.