Long ago, one man band Netherfriends told me he was putting together his first diss album and that it would be a punk album. Two years later and we finally get the six song album Logan Square. Speaking on the album, he said:

["I made a punk album back in 2013 when I was living at the Kimball House with Fess Grandiose. During my time living there, I got caught in Southern, IL with less than a gram of weed and was arrested. I had to get drug tested so that meant I couldn't smoke tree for 2 months. During that time I dated a girl named Whitney, drank at bad bars, attended boring punk rock shows, and recorded the Logan Square album. I hope you enjoy it. This isn't my favorite genre of muse [sic], but I had a blast recording it."]

The Logan Square album is through and through a Chicago project. For a non-Chicagoan, the project might not have any context; it's full of local references (Kimball House, Fullerton, The Owl) that he surrounded himself with for a summer. For the unfamiliar, Logan Square is a neighborhood in Chicago scattered with duplexes and dive bars, tight jeans and cigarette burns. The "punk" album that Netherfriends is presenting to the world (he released it on his birthday) is about as punk as his forthcoming "blues trap" album will be blues or trap. Songs like "The Owl" and "It's Magic" might fit better next to The Rolling Stones than Ramones while the song "Logan Square Girls" has one of the better, more honest melodies from Netherfriends and would work well as a ringtone.

The genre is unnecessary here, though, as Netherfriends has his own genre. His songs are catchy, poppy even. They are doused in guitar riffs and fun to get drunk and dance to. His Logan Square project is no different, and these thirteen minutes are yet another reason why Netherfriends is capable of covering multiple styles and musings, with or without the use of marijuana.

[Note: you can find numerous These Days favorites in the artwork for Logan Square, including staff member Westley Parker and contributing photographer Bryan Allen Lamb. Far out.]

Netherfriends • Logan Square