Ahhhhhhhhh, here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new PISS album, you made me / skin on linen.

This is the new debut album of this Vancouver punk and noise rock act PISS, and it's really one of the most incredible and explosive debut albums I have heard this year. And the band is ambitiously and conceptually coming at this project like it's anything but an album or just much more than an album.

I mean, look no further than the title and the cover, which is not just, simply a name, but it's formatted and presented like a contextual tag, placed right next to an art piece in a modern art gallery, naming, of course, the materials used.

PISS is also very upfront about the experiential materials going into their own music right from the get-go on this thing. As the entire record kicks off with a kind of unsuspecting recording of kids talking about what they want to be when they grow up taking turns doing that. When the last child's statement leads into the track, "i wanted to be a singer," which is less a formal song and more a statement of, intent and in a way, desperation, with front-woman Taylor Zantingh openly stating that her performance here is really an attempt to make her pain and emotion mean something, and immediately questions if her efforts are helping you or helping herself.

She goes on to describe fruitless life paths and broken dreams over grim and angular guitar arpeggios, eventually reaching a point of maddening, hair-raising screams on top of oppressive and chunky guitar riffs and drums. And on this track, you will genuinely hear a vocal performance like, none other in 2026. Because there is such a rawness and volume and pain in Taylor's voice, I sort of one of wonder whether or not her vocal chords are going to give out in the middle of the track. She even acknowledges, the intensity of the scream, saying, "I spent my life learning the right way to scream so people would listen." Which I would say is very much working.

Other statements on the track: "this is not a song, it's self-harm." Because yes, performing at this level of intensity can be very destructive to one's body, especially in the live setting.

And this energy very much informs the rest of this record in so many ways. Not just in terms of music and message, but there's a bit of an interesting meta-angle to this album as well. Because not only does the progression of this album lay out sort of a broader understanding of personal healing and rape culture, but in so many ways the writing and performances on this LP also kind of put on display how one's trauma can eat you alive if it goes unaddressed or if you are subjected to conditions where your pain and your suffering are minimized.

From here, in true punk fashion, of course, the tracklist on this thing is also littered with, bits of audio and sound collage and spoken word passages. As a means of really kind of bringing home the meaning of many of this album's tracks and its overall message, "andrea I" is one of a few snippets that features the voice of writer and activist Andrea Dworkin, who is polarizing for reasons that could be debated endlessly inside and outside of feminist circles. However, I would encourage listeners to basically dissect the substance of what she's saying about pornography and rape culture and how it informs the lyrics of the following track "time loop at hot slit."

Another incredible moment on this album of blistering hardcore and noise rock where Taylor gives yet another blowout performance with a combination of snarky spoken word verses and enraged screams that might lead you to believe the lyrics are actually simpler than and then they are on this track.

And for sure, the messaging here around the sexualization of young girls and sex being something forced upon women as opposed to something to be mutually enjoyed. That much is clear, but the way it is laid out through this imagery around glue and feelings and words and sensations being sort of stuck in your mouth and also having to edit and hem yourself in as a means of social and sexual acceptance.

There's actually layers to a lot of what is being said here. Not to mention darkly comedic moments like:

"They chose to grab her and I can't say that it looked forced / but there was a rhythm to being the chosen one / And we're not like the other whores if we can be yours / These days I'm learning to paint the iron bars pink.

These lines would be laugh worth if the reality that they were addressing weren't so devastation. On a musical level, I really appreciate how the drum and guitar passages are akin to some of my favorite post-punk bands, fem post punk bands from decades ago.

We have a short track following that up with "a little girl's horse craze betrays her" which is kind of a hardcore grind combo that is just so fast and unrelenting. It's shockingly heavy, too, for the speed.

And then nestled in between this and the next track is an interesting spoken word moment from none other than writer Toni Morrison, who talks about paths of forgiveness and self-forgiveness after having done something horrible and basically the feelings of self-loathing and shame that you have to go through in order to reach that point where you can come to terms with your actions, which the purpose of that message is made clear as it sits shoulder to shoulder with songs that deal in what they deal in on this record. And as we hit the halfway point of this album, PISS essentially saves some of the most harrowing moments on the album for this section.

"there was a door" is very much a meditation on self-harm and disassociation. Losing sense of one's own body in response to trauma that has been experienced with the guitars and drums sounding more gnarly and heavier and more out of sync, out of tune as the track goes on.

And we have similar themes crossing over on "how can you act opposite of this emotion?" where we hear more about kind of the body as a prison as the song really serves as a reminder of the way we can take for granted the feeling of safety in our own bodies because that very much can be ripped away from us. This track is laced with very haunting descriptions of things like bed springs creaking just before the track spirals into a refrain centered around the title where again Taylor shows a level of intensity you will hear on no other album in 2026.

Then "blocking a scene you can't remember" gets even more direct through a messy chaotic disheveled retelling where Taylor is having to constantly cut in the midst of these words and retake certain phrases or sentences. I imagine as a means of trying to get a clear message out here and it just works in so many layers in terms of describing the past events as a scene that replays in your head doing all of these cuts and retakes as if you are engaging in a scene now and there's even an element here in terms of how these stories are disseminated and shared maybe from like a social media angle as well in this track.

Musically the whole thing is laid out with this kind of post-rock post-hardcore type progression that feels almost Slint inspired with very dour guitars that reaches eventually this hardcore crescendo.

Then from here we get an interesting meta moment with "self-blame with thorn necklace and hummingbird" where the lyrical commentary very much centers around women's bodies in art and there's you know clearly things kind of looping back into the idea of this being a part of a display or a gallery of some sort. My only real critique being I wish there was more of an effort to kind of extend this point and message out here.

And then the final moments thematically are kind of interesting, kind of hitting between bits of praxis and literature and self-care and healing. This vocal snippet passage about the omnipresence of rape culture and how it's greater than any one man or boy who might behave in such a way to reinforce it.

And then with the lengthy title on this "Rote Zora" track, I really like the message that Piss is coming at this one with as it kind of draws attention to the idea of the normalization of abuse and how direct action against that can hypothetically have a turn away effect where those who are essentially kind of living under that normalization and are more or less accepting of it could be kind of shocked or offended at behaviors or actions that act to fight against it.

This track directly asks why is that scarier than the violence that's being normalized itself. And this can very much be extended out into other leftist causes. Blocking arms, animal liberation, resisting police violence. Essentially the track is really about bridging the gap between the aware and unaware. Those who are willing to stomach normalized violence and those who are willing to change it. It's one of the stronger messages to end on with this record.

But the real final track on this thing is "i keep trying to change the ending," which is a very slow, head-scratching moment of ambient, experience, and these kind of dynamic post-rock type guitars. Very gentle singing as well where it seems like Taylor and the band are kind of going back to these images and feelings and recollections that bring them to a positive or a happier place, and hopefully through that changing the ending that's being alluded to. But I found on numerous occasions as I spun this album over and over and over again there's an eerie similarity to the final moments of this track and the initial moments of the first track where you hear those kids kind of talking about what they hope to be when they grow up and in a way it sort of feels like there's a kind of a cycle going on here, a loop that's very difficult to break.

But yeah, as I said toward the start of the review, very amazing and powerful and in a lot of ways, emotionally punishing debut album from PISS. There are a few albums I've heard this year that did a better job in terms of finding power in simplicity while also incorporating a lot of purpose and poeticism as well.

Not to mention, we're currently living in times where our president has been accused of heinous things in the Epstein files, the Cornell Seven story. All of these horrendous things we're forced to sit and accept as being a part of everyday life in this country are all born out of the very same root problems that this album is trying to get to the core of, that this album and very few others are willing to address as boldly and as directly. And artfully as well, I might add. Which is why I would say I'm feeling a decent to strong nine on this one.

Anthony Fantano. PISS. Forever.