“One thing leads to another / One way or the other”, admits Mike Wallace on Working In Shoes – the closing track to RIBS’ sophomore release, COLD RIBS. Wallace is a vital source in dispensing home truths. His street-level cynicism as leader of RIBS, more than warranted. Not least because the Raleigh, North Carolina band – also featuring guitarist, Finn Cohen, bassist, David Mueller and drummer, Josh Germeroth – should be reaching far more ears.
It’s yet another example of why the world is destined for the dirt. “A snake eating its own tail,” as Wallace professes on one of COLD RIBS’ many illuminating moments, Paperwork. A song about “corporate echoes” and “uncertainty” as capitalism erodes, well… fucking everything!
Its sibling track, Crashing Machine, finds Wallace in an equally pensive mood. A nod to the 2011 film Margin Call, where the powers that be are “selling the apocalypse” where, defeated, Wallace admits that “you can’t beat it, so you buy it.”
RIBS don’t shy away from the sunken gloom of this increasingly immoral world. If they did, then they would merely be a façade; reality, the core of this band’s DNA. RIBS’ 2025 debut, Junkyard Dynasty Leaderboard was a marvel, and probably contained the song of the year (Eddie’s Dub). Pound for pound, COLD RIBS betters it.
Wallace’s sing-speak sermons are reminiscent of trailblazing leaders. When they speak, you listen. In a performance sense, think of the frenetic nature of Cedric Bixler-Zavala fronting At the Drive-In. But unlike the leader of the El Paso legend’s, RIBS actually swing. Don’t believe me? Take High Fives of the Four Horsemen. No other modern-day indie-rock band has swung quite like it since Scarcity of Tanks. It’s Stones-inspired stuff. And with a lyric like, “Let the lines streak by in Morse code… And let the sky reflect the road”, even Mick and Keith would approve. But this isn’t for stadiums. Instead, dingy rock clubs and the devoted few are crucial fabric in the RIBS patchwork, and they’ll never discard it.
RIBS - COLD RIBSSome may disagree given COLD RIBS’ duration. An ambitious 50 minutes, which is a rarity in this day of age of short attention spans and leaning in heavy on the screen time. Which is yet more evidence that RIBS are a glorious throwback, where meticulous songcraft and staying with something supersedes everything else.
Even if Wallace confesses that we “can’t stay this way forever” on opening gambit, Decomp in the Field. Swirling post-punk with pin-sharp, quiet / loud dynamics with abstract themes to match. It’s part Joyce, part Kafka, part acid trip. “Call me de-confused, man”. Indeed.
Following is Not A Boogie – swooping, fuzz-laden garage rock where “also-rans” and the “wham bam thank you ma’m-mers” lead the line in a tale about capitalism sucking the best things out of life. (In this case, music or a watered down version of it where bands on the grift hit the big time only to crash and burn. Literally.)
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Medicine / Medicisn’t follows the same lineage, as Wallace puts Big Pharma through the wringer. The swirling number, cause for the singer to wield verses like an axe (“The kind of PHD that prefers gossip to history”).
Elsewhere, and In the Rushlight is a graceful nod to Lou Reed, with knife-sharp observations to match (“Without passion / With our conviction / We’re never more than these addictions / And all our convenient fictions”). It bleeds into Cold Daylight, as RIBS remain entrenched in the ’70s. Led by Mueller’s hypnotic bass lines and Cohen’s open-chord treatment, it’s a no-nonsense, straight-up blues jam.
Like a lost hit from the vaults of K Records, Strange Victories sees RIBS pivot from the blues to razor-sharp post-punk. “What used to scare me / Is no longer frightening / No, not anymore,” confesses Wallace. In what is COLD RIBS’ defining moment, the four-piece put the world under the microscope as good as anybody in the indie-rock stratum. Is that a positive outlook for a doomed world? Just about, but one thing is for certain. There’s a degree of comfort knowing that a band like RIBS are key narrators in it.
COLD RIBS is out now via Three Lobed Recordings. Purchase from Bandcamp.
