Review: This Moment in Black History - "Public Square"
This Moment in Black History is a difficult act to analyze, not merely due to their crosscutting stylistic directions or unorthodox structures, but for their entire approach as it pertains to art and substance. In what might be deemed the burgeoning style of hipster hardcore (or ”blipster” hardcore depending on whether you agree with the New York Times coining cultural terms), TMIBH joins the ranks of those such as Pissed Jeans, the Death Set and latter-day Fucked Up who dabble in experimentalism as much as raw energy. On Public Square, the sense of irony in songs like “Forest Whitaker (In an Uncompromising Role)” and “Theophylline Valentine” bubbles over much more so than any Minor Threat, Bad Brains or even late-era Black Flag. Sure, at times TMIBH can be rather straightforward, like in “MFA” where the simple message of the chorus is “It’s what I worked so hard for.” The verse is another story, though, spewing cryptically “250 miles down south / Put that chili back in your mouth / Fa...