The dudes of Idleminds are: Chris Joyce on lead vox, Mike Pruitt on bass, Josh Winn on guitar, and Holden Duke on drums. Formed in 2008, these guys are based out of Maryland, but have been known to melt faces in Delaware, Virginia, PA, and DC as well. Although I’m always looking for a good crabcore band outta Baltimore, these boys are auditory nostalgia and provide my soul with some serious skate punk vibes. Equally awesome and acceptable.
Brick By Brick was released in March of 2018 and starts out like a neighborhood in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. By that, I mean that it’s 90’s skate punk at its finest. “Time to Decide” sets the tone for this four song EP. Not only are the guitars hard, fast, and in your face, the lyrics are as gritty as the backyard vert ramp that you used to bust your knees open on as a kid. So far we are off to an excellent start.
“Brick By Brick” is the next ripper in this tease of a listening experience. I really dug the vocals on this EP’s namesake. The harmonies are killer here. Even though this song was recorded over two years ago, it’s still pretty relevant in 2020. “Watching the city fall apart, brick by brick” is just another segment on the local news channel this evening.
Rolling right into “Sideways,” there is no taking a break from those hard hitting riffs. There are times throughout where the guitar just simply screams and Duke flies on the drums. The vocals may have been my favorite in the last track, but the instrumentals in this one are top notch.
The EP ends on the same in your face attitude that it started with, but this song is a little bit different. While I definitely heard Bad Religion and Pennywise influences in the other tracks, “One Day Maybe” gave me full on Face to Face this time. The lyrics were raw and real, but also had that hidden uplifting message buried within. As everyone knows, I love F2F so I wasn’t mad about it. It was the best song of the bunch to wrap it all up and send us on our day.
Breezy McMullen is the Editor in Chief at PA and Find Out. In addition to her duties there, she is also a co-owner of Allegedly Records and a founding member of the international co-op, Scene to Scene. When she’s not herding children or musicians, you can find her in the woods or on a lake getting stoned…. probably.