Ditching derivatives

Fuck Knights CD release show

Where: Hexagon Bar, 2600 S. 27th Ave..

When: 9 p.m., Thursday, July 14

Cost: Free

Unless you’re one of those moral purists who get offended by words or you’re the queen of England, it’s hard to have any serious qualms about a band like the Fuck Knights.

The first half of their debut LP “Let It Bleed” is a crash course in raucous garage punk. Call it derivative if you will, but according to Greg Mills, Fuck Knight’s drummer, vocalist and head songwriter, innovation wasn’t ever really the point.

 “I never thought we were reinventing the wheel and I feel like people who are taking that approach don’t have the foundation or traditional root in the music that they’re making,” Mills said. “You got to start somewhere, you got to start with what you know. And that’s where I was at that time three years ago [writing the songs].”

And after numerous singles and the recent addition of a fourth member, the Fuck Knights are set to release their debut LP this Thursday with a show at the Hexagon Bar.

“Let It Bleed” is the kind of album that leaves your head spinning hours after you’re finished listening to it. With the songs averaging roughly two-minutes per piece, the album flies by like a speeding freight train barreling down the tracks towards inevitable destruction. It’s a 40-minute onslaught of bar-friendly riff-raff, rife with all the snot-nosed arrogance and frenetic energy of an above-average Black Lips record. There are no big surprises on “Let It Bleed,” no intentions of shifting the dynamics of music. It’s just big riffs, walloping snares and pure, unadulterated rock ‘n’ roll.

But while the first half of the album is more of an assortment of all the run-of-the-mill punk fare they’ve released over the last two years, the second half of “Let It Bleed” finds the quartet covering some new terrain.

“Knight Terrors” starts off in typical Fuck Knight fashion, but takes a detour, concluding with a din of ambient noise and scorching reverb-soaked guitar, while in “Abrasions,” horns blare amid a sloppy stir of crunch, clatter and psychedelic chaos.

While Mills insists Fuck Knights’ musical evolution was natural, he admits that he was beginning to feel pigeonholed and explained how the public’s expectations of the band wore on him over time.

“I think people expected us to play minute-fifteen, verse- chorus-outro stuff for our entire career. I’m a lot more curious than that,” Mills said. “I started to feel constrained. … For me, as an artist, if something is expected of me, I’ll just do the complete opposite.”

In their worst moments, the Fuck Knights are repetitive, tiresome and wholly predictable.

In their best moments, they’re maniacal, as if they’re on the verge of a mental breakdown, with each song sounding more and more like the musical interpretation of some deranged psychiatric patient desperately trying to kick and scream his way out of a strait jacket.

The Fuck Knights might have cut their teeth on the derivative market, but “Let It Bleed” is a testament to the band’s ability (and willingness) to step outside their comfort zone.