7-11 Jesus has a sound that is as striking as their name – loud and playful noise rock that combines influences from across genres. The end product is a sound that is abrasive without taking itself too seriously. 7-11 Jesus consists of August Darula on guitar and vocals, Emma Jacobson on bass and Kieran Gill on drums. Although they have been based out of San Francisco since their formation in 2017, two of the three band members originated in Boston and they plan on relocating here sometime in 2021. They also cite some local legends like Dinosaur Jr., Vundabar and Kal Marks as influences. The band is soon releasing their second album Tree Dream, and we’re delighted to be premiering the new single “Kill Your Friends.”
“Kill Your Friends” is a raucous combination of garage rock and noise rock that consistently flips everything on its head. The song packs a lot into four and half minutes, often sounding like it is about to go off the rails before reining itself back in. The end result is instead a cross-genre banger that’s a lot more chaotic and fun than it is dark. The song starts noisily, with a single second of drums before a full wall of noise from the full band and vocals all hitting under a layer of distortion. The song’s verses take the best elements of garage rock and couple them with a shoegaze influence to create an entertaining chaos of pop rhythms and just barely discernible lyrics.
Suddenly, however, the song grinds to a halt for a slower chorus and more intermittent noise. The clearest lyric in the song – sung with no music accompaniment – goes “But things move slowly and drift away, I’ll drown in my own decay.” This sudden change highlights the more downtrodden chorus, which moves more sluggishly than the verses. The back-and-forths are deliberately manic, with rapid shifts in volume and tone. Acoustic guitar even briefly pops up, a calm before the storm of a climax when the song erupts into screamed vocals, heavy distortion and gleefully off-tempo guitar. “Kill Your Friends” sounds like it could be an album closer, but it’s only the second track – a solid indication of the ways that 7-11 Jesus plays around with the norms.
This is true across the album Tree Dream, an eclectic mix of standard garage rock and boundary-pushing noise elements that shuns away tropes in favor of a loud, abrasive and enjoyable mess of unpredictability (with wonderful Twin Peaks-inspired cover art to boot). The album was recorded by the band themselves actually in a garage after COVID-19 blocked them from proper studio time, and before it was eventually mixed by Jack Shirley. “Kill Your Friends” is the third and final single ahead of the album’s release on February 12th and can be streamed below.