Corker (Cincinnati) corkscrew into a cold one.

I used to work at SD Warren paper plant in Muskegon on the shores of Lake Michigan, a paper plant unlike all the others I'd worked at, the bulk of the building in some way seeming to have more mass than any of the other  industrial complexes I'd worked at, and I'd work at them all, from the massive Dow Chemical pipeline structures in the thumb of the Michigan mitten to oil refineries throughout the rust belt, and sure many of those places had more acreage, the height and girth of the SD Warren building made it seem so to hold more mass than most anything I'd met, certainly seeming more than the many other huge paper plant complexes I'd worked at throughout the southern counties of Michigan, from Detroit to Muskegon, much of the massive building already built when I arrived in the 1980s, but some still being built...crawling in boiler tanks and grinding out welds with the summer heat more thick and more hot than I've ever experienced, more than I've ever want to experience again, the air monitor screaming out its siren warning to tell you to get out before you die but you keep grinding because to crawl out from that belly of hell into the cool air of 90 degrees humidity means you have just have to crawl back into there a few minutes later when the siren stops ringing, smoking Marlboros to get a breath of fresh air, farting just to improve the smell of the air...and later elsewhere in the complete, cutting into steel and this black tar acid explodes from 4 inch pipes, and the guy next to you strips off his filthy coveralls but the burning black acid tar has already reached his skin and started to burn through to bones so you use rags to wipe away the acid and the flesh from his arm with it, and all the union workers pack their tool boxes and like machinery pack it up and go, fuck this shit, but you just look at the thinning of the crowd at the ones left, and you know you've got many 20 hours shifts to go, catnapping in the 1978 Dodge power-wagon in the gravel parking lot..but that's not really what this remains me of, this reminds me SD Warren in the winter, working with the crews building a building on top of the building, this album reminds me of that, riding this thing called a man-lift, a minimal industrial version of an elevator(which I've only seen one other place, in the parking ramp in the opening scene from the 1970s drive-in Walter Hill movie The Driver), hand hold and toe holds bolted to a vertical conveyor belt...you'd light a smoke and hold it in your lips as you jumped on the moving belt, grab and hold, rising up story after story through dark passages and crawl spaces filled with decades of grime and blacken pulp, the machinery of the paper plant and the hammering of the construction crews echoing into the chunk-chink grinding of the man-lift elevator...just the toe section of your greasy boots fitting on the foothold, your gloves in the back pocket of your coveralls because you want to make sure you have a grip on that handhold (which was kind of like a bigger and upside-down version of shelled handles attached to dresser drawers or sort of like a metal and more uniform version of the handhold they use in climbing walls), your other hand using every muscle it has to hold the heavy lead "lunchbox" that contained the Cobalt 60 or Iridium 192 radioactive isotope you'd use to x-ray (actually gamma-ray) the I-beams and welds in the new construction, holding that lead box with all your might because dropping it is not an option--it not only would knock the person below you off the lift and send them to the hard cement below, it would smash their skull  instantly because it's pounds of lead, only the size of a Igloo lunch cooler but heavy as an anvil (and then of course the radioactivity isotope would likely end up exposed and difficult and dangerous to find) and hoping the people above you are just as committed to holding on to their power tools and tool boxes...what a ride...what a trip...I block out some of my time at that place, but I always remember that man-lift because it was my favorite part of the job, I loved that thing to death, and this album reminds me of that, rising up until you step off into the open air of the I-beam construction, this huge upper section being built on top of the older structure...everyone has probably seen the films and photos of crews on high-rise I-beam construction, but it's different when you have the weight of hauling equipment along the construction, and in photos you can't feel the blustering winds and bitter cold, especially in the winter in Michigan, but like this album, some release and liberating waits at the end of the journey...sitting in the dark on an I-beam, holding on for your life but also relaxing after a 16 hour shift and a job well done, radioactive isotope in its box where it belongs, finally some old-timer like Kraun-daddy (who fought in Vietnam and helped build the Alaskan pipeline) managing to get his Lucky Strike lit and passing it down the line so you can light yours, the lights of Muskegon shimmering, the dark waters of Lake Michigan like a pit of abyss in the dark of the night, waving to the people below--while of course they can't see you--to the crew of the Greenpeace boat in the bay who traveled there with one purpose, to protest this thing you are helping to build, a thing built through the decades, you there in 1980s, the whole building eventually demolished...maybe just some tax shelter or money laundering structure for some filthy rich people in some land far away.  I don't know, but I will always remember that, and I'll keep selling great records like ones by Feel It Records with the hope I never have to return to places like that, and instead can sit here in my underwear at 3 AM listening to records and telling you about them, like this one, another essential listen of rust belt punk rock from Cincinnati, like that man-lift ride...dark, cold, fast and industrial...rattling and unsettling, smelling of death and rising from the choppy dark waters of the 1980s, menacing mix of human flesh and mechanical, some release as it rises through cold claustrophobic into arm-stretching and pounding of steel winds and open air still caged in the construction of cement and rebar.  Click off the lights and crack open this cold one, light up a Lucky Strike and lend it an ear.  -- winch (green noise)

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From a city quickly gaining steam as a minor post-punk mecca, Corker emerge from the Cincinnati underground with their debut full length, 'Falser Truths'. Corker are the proverbial fly in the ointment - soaking up every glorious facet of the past while swirling new thoughts and sounds into one highly engaging debut. Corker were first introduced to popular consciousness with 2021's 'A Bell That Seems To Mourn' on Cincinnati's own Future Shock Recordings, headed by Dakota Carlyle (Crime Of Passing, The Drin, The Serfs). Following several tours of the Midwest and surrounds, Corker began recording 'Falser Truths' in 2022 - the same year Feel It Records transplanted their operations to Cincinnati. What seems like an almost-inevitable partnership began with Feel It issuing the 'Lice' single just as 2023 arrived. Paired with eight additional tracks recorded and mixed just over the Kentucky line at The Lodge with John Hoffman, 'Falser Truths' is not only intelligent, but bold, charismatic, and free. There's little restriction to Corker's formula - whether they're lifting latent fingerprints of the post-punk past, rendering landscapes of Industrial wasteland, or bending rhythm and tone with Krautish ambition - the end result is resoundingly original. Genre purists be damned! Corker stand apart from their contemporaries on 'Falser Truths' - an album realized by a fresh set of eyes and ears, driven far beyond the earthly bounds of now. credits released September 1, 2023 Luke Corvette - Lead Vocals, Guitar Cole Gilfilen - Guitar, Synth, Vocals Ryan Sennett - Bass, Synth Alex Easterday - Drums, Percussion All songs were performed by Corker with additional noise by Dakota Carlyle and Megan Schroer on track 9. Eric Dietrich played saxophone on tracks 4, 5, and 9 Produced by John Hoffman and Corker Assistant production by Sam Richardson Engineered by John Hoffman at The Lodge in Dayton, KY for the Hamilton County Youth Prevention Center and Feel It Records Mixed by John Hoffman, Corker, and Sam Richardson at Pork Avenue Punk House (Minneapolis, MN) and The Lodge (Dayton, KY) Mastered by Carl Saff