These days, when you think of Scranton, PA, one thing comes to mind. That's right, The Menzingers, and their album Chamberlain Waits available April 13th, 2010 from your favorite assholes at Red Scare Industries.

Hey, wait! Where are you going? I know. I know. With a name like The Menzingers and a label like Red Scare, you're immediately tempted to write these youngsters off as another new jack Ramones thingy, but that would be (and I'm not exaggerating here) the gravest mistake you would ever make in your entire life! The Menzingers are an angry, rough around the edges, dirty punk rock band complete with deep island influences. Think about it like this, if you took the genre bending ideas of Vampire Weekend and executed them with urgency and desperate rage instead of half-assed cutesy-ness; you'd approach the Clash by way of Fugazi by way of Sean Paul by way of Against Me!...that's what the Menzingers have cultivated on this new slab. Chamberlain Waits is a masterpiece by my modest standards. But hey, don't take my word for it! Maybe you'd prefer to listen to the fine folks at Alternative Press, eh? Okay then.

The Menzingers have been named one of AP's 2010 bands to watch and that's pretty accurate because their live show tends to involve sweaty hordes completely encircling the band, hoisting the members in the air (particularly frontman Tom May, who is tiny) and screaming every word. So, listen to AP and watch them. The show is so good, so visceral, and so reminiscent of what punk rock is all about that they were instantly signed to Red Scare after label viceroy Brendan Kelly happened to wander into some dive they were playing and loved the mayhem that the Menzingers were exuding.

These dudes recorded Chamberlain Waits at Atlas studios with Matt Allison, birthplace of classic records by Alkaline Trio, Less Than Jake, and The Lawrence Arms. These kids been cranking out the hits since they got signed to Go-Kart when they were still in high school and have since toured with the likes of Anti-Flag, The Lawrence Arms, Broadway Calls, and Cobra Skulls. They've also just been tapped to support NOFX and Against Me! on upcoming tours. Not bad for a quartet of dudes whose guidance counselors said would never make it out of the Electric City, eh?

That's right, folks. You hold, in your soft, pasty hands the culmination of four short working class lifetimes; channeled into a passion for ball-pummeling live shows and true genre experimentation, farted out with the panache and class that only a world class studio and engineer like Atlas and Matt Allison can produce. The album title references the factories that backline Scranton, and wait patiently for the young to take their places in the machine. The Menzingers, however, aren't headed for Chamberlain. They're gonna become cogs in the vastly less lucrative and secure music industry. Gotta love youthful idealism, right? Right. And hey, they can always get jobs at that one paper place with the cute receptionist if this music thing doesn't work out. Shit! I promised myself I wouldn't mention The Office. Ah fuck, I did it again! Damned television! Look, you get the idea. I'm out of here.