Chicago band The Christmas Bride is probably going to test you on how much nonsense you’re willing to put up with in the name of really good music. There are a few warning signs there to let the listener know that these three guys quite obviously don’t take themselves too seriously. For starters there is the slimy, HAZMAT-inspired album artwork (and we won’t even get into what is on the back of the LP sleeve). Then there is also the fact that the album is called Planet Earth’s Motto: Someone Just Shit Out a Perfect Sphere and it contains track names befitting such a title. But if you sweep all of that to the back of your mind and listen to the album I’m pretty sure you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was.

Milking that sugary middle ground between power pop and post-punk, Planet Earth’s Motto is a short but intensely listenable album full of insane pop hooks and juvenile energy. It’s being put out next week (July 17) by Sophomore Lounge Records.

From frontman, Davey Hart:

The Christmas Bride started playing shows around Chicago in Spring of 2011, but I had written some of our earliest songs a year prior. “New Hit Mekanik” was a dream I had about British new wavers in a room full of pink smoke and computer consoles. Many other songs I thought of while high or riding my bike or even at work, of all places. I always thought The Christmas Bride was going to be my silly, sloppy project (secondary to Wishgift, my other band), but within the past year I’ve begun taking this band super seriously. I’m thankful that Chip Hamlett (also of Cool Memories) and Sal Cassato (of Animal City/State Champion) are willing to indulge my stupid ideas (so far).

This band, as opposed to Wishgift, was meant to be an experiment in rapid, unfiltered songwriting, as well as an outlet for indulging my deep love for ’70s power pop, punk, and new wave (not to mention glam and garage rock). A lot of my songs are what I call “character” songs—you know, about made-up characters. Kind of like the musical equivalent of action figures or superhero trading cards. “Sheriff Sherpa” and “Nurse David (Male Stewardess in Love)” are examples of these. They’re like theme songs for cartoons. I also never thought I would write songs about relationships or women, but I thought it would be fun to toy with this convention of pop-punk, hence “Am I Masochist”, “Donna Madonna”, etc. I also like to sing about my sexuality because I feel like if I get it all out there, no matter how crass or un-PC it is, it’ll help me figure shit out and become less ashamed/inhibited sexually. I sing about sexy stuff in Wishgift too, but I guess you could say that grappling with this subject in The Christmas Bride is a little less abstracted. ‘Planet Earth’s Motto: Someone Just Shit Out a Perfect Sphere’ is something my friend Brandon said to me in earnest a long time ago, and no longer remembers saying it. I always thought it was funny because it’s a cool way of saying that the world is shit.

The Christmas Bride is for fans of the Buzzcocks, Undertones, Wipers, and Descendants. But instead we sound like complicated, slowed-down NOFX on accident. This is what happens when you skirt the line of mall punk.

The Christmas Bride — “NEW HIT MEKANIK”

The Christmas Bride — “K. O. BOYZ”