Repent/Rejoice, Baby, The Kings of Post-Punk-Goth-Metal (2010-2020 Division) Are Back
Publicist UK, 2015
Publicist UK, 2025
WITH FULL HEARTS AND REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS, PUBLICIST UK RETURNS WITH FIRST NEW MUSIC IN A DECADE
FFO The Chameleons, The Cure, Joy Division, t-shirts w/Unknown Pleasures album art but the Cure’s logo, Glorious Din, Native Cats, Asylum Party, Hot Chocolate’s “Emma”
Publicist UK was Zachary Lipez (vocals), David Obuchowski (guitars), David Witte (drums), and Brett Bamberger (bass), and still is.
Forgive Yourself, the first album by the post-punk/gothic metal group—made up of two anglophiles who love heavy metal music and two heavy metal guys who are also anglophiles, but mainly just for Bolt Thrower—was released on August 21, 2015. A photo of the Earth, posted by NASA on the 21st though taken by the International Space Station ten days prior, shows the global excitement which accompanied the debut. Equally auspicious was the Make-A-Wish® foundation’s celebration on that date of WWE® Superstar John Cena® having just granted his 500th wish. While Forgive Yourself’s vinyl format only allowed for the granting of ten wishes to the public at large, it’s arguable that—with no disrespect intended to WWE® Superstar John Cena®—the material benefit of those ten wishes were at least equal to the five hundred granted by Cena®. But of course there’s no real metric for judging such things. At the end of the day, even the best songs on Forgive Yourself (and, to be sure,there were a couple real bangers) weren’t enough to save any of the band members’ loved ones from dying by cancer, so we’ll call “tie” for the supergroup and wrestling superstar’s competing wish granting track records. Everybody, it can be assumed, tried their best.
As with the wrestling superstar, the ten years which followed Publicist UK’s first LP were a bit of a mixed bag. In terms of numbers, Forgive Yourself did… fine. Well enough that, at last accounting, the band only owes Relapse $37*. Critically, the album also did OK. It was generally ignored by the indie intelligentsia (possibly because critics liked it but didn’t like fellow critic Lipez personally, possibly because critics didn’t like the album but liked Lipez personally and didn’t want to hurt his feelings, possibly on merit, possibly because the bandname irritated people). There were some nice notices from sites like Treble and Allmusic. Metal sites were kinder, with MetalSucks in particular being very sweet.
Decibel Magazine was an early and constant supporter, and outdid them all by eventually listing Forgive Yourself as #72 in its Top 100 Metal Albums of the 2010s (eat shit, Deafheaven). (jk Deafheaven beat Publicist UK out by 69 spots.) (Congrats, Deafheaven!) The list, however, is print only, so you’ll just have to take the band’s word for it. It’ll run you $8 to call them liars.
In terms of fans, the band did a bit better; with the response by fellow musicians—if drunken gladhanding at St. Vitus is the measure (and it is)—being overwhelmingly positive, online strangers being shockingly civil, and even German fans omitting any caveats in the written praise they’ve sent the band during the decade. Some of these fans even asked when Publicist UK was going to do a followup album. The answer, initially, was “yes!” Then the answer became “yessssss…?”, which soon became “possibly,” and then eventually the response was “haha. Ask one of the other guys.”
Because, as anyone on either side of the wish granting business will tell you, you can wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first. A projection for merch sales, particularly for hoodies, on a European tour proved to be debilitatingly optimistic. A couple of the guys cut down on their drinking, a couple of the guys didn’t. Lipez’s habitual bridgeburning/shit-talking proved to be less helpful to the band’s trajectory than originally assumed, while the market for metal/hardcore dudes going post-punk reached a saturation point during 2015-20, with bands like Beastmilk and Soft Kill succeeding by doing what Publicist UK would/could not (i.e. tour more than a few times in as many years, put out music, generally exist in the material world) and surpassing our heroes accordingly.
In the midst of all this, the individual members of Publicist UK were dealing with issues both personal and professional. Most of these issues are not for public consumption, except to say that all four got a little strange. Witte focused on Municipal Waste (and band which has deservedly gone from strength to strength), Obuchowski formed another band (with one of the musicians from The Sundays and Sad Lovers & Giants) and became a successful short-story writer (the former being neat and the latter rarely being an indication of “being in a good place, emotionally”), Bamberger stepped away from constant touring altogether in order to focus on his first loves (skateboarding, not wearing a shirt), with the result being that the last time Lipes saw him, the bassist had cut all his hair and looked like a tennis instructor in an adult film. Lipez himself, after dawdling on songwriting for years and making a living by tearing down his betters, became cartoon of Karmic retribution; with both his parents dying consecutively and the ensuing vocal demos he sent the band sounding like the mutterings of a Scottish inpatient at one of those asylums which dire plays were written about in the ‘70s.
But, like a phoenix dropped from its label (because apparently, ten years for a demo of six minute long songs about dead parents, is a “long time”), Publicist UK has risen from the maws of defeat and mental higgledy-piggleddy-ness. Stronger, albeit more odd, and ready to get slapped around by the universe one more time!
With songs beautifully written by Obuchowski, adroitly fiddled with by Witte and Bamberger, and recorded in home studios all over America, the new, older, wiser(ish) Publicist UK 2025 is less streamlined than pointedly sprawling. Gone are the heavy breakdowns (at least in the musical sense) and yeah-yeah-cool-cool existentialism of the band’s earlier lyrics. In their place, the band has constructed an almost orchestral (the) Sundays worship, underpinned by some of Witte’s most inventively straightforward drumming yet, Bamberger’s almost berserk melodicism, and lyrics which are about exactly what they’re about, with nearly all self-conscious cleverness replaced by plaintive bargaining-with-God (and one unintentional melodic lift from the works of Billy Idol). Is it the band’s best work? We’ll let Decibel be the judge of that. But, with renewed spirit (and with most of the competition removed from the chessboard via time and/or cancellation), the stars are the only limit Publicist UK still holds in abject terror and awe. (Also, they’re still not going to tour.)
The new single, to be released on Obuchowski’s own label, Moth Hospital Records, arrives a decade to the day of the band’s debut. The track, “Violence,” is both the shortest track and the only song on the new album explicitly not about grief and/or incipient fascism, and thus is maybe not representative of the entire work. But it’s catchy and was the first one the band mixed, so. Full album coming “soon.”
Mixed by Obuchowski
Music recorded by Obuchowski, Witte, and Bamberger. Vocals recorded/often co-written by Zohra Atash.
Publicist UK on Bandcamp: https://publicistuk.bandcamp.com/track/violence
2015 promo photo by Scott Colby
“Violence” cover photo by April Viar
Photo model: Robocat
Bio by Kurt Cobain
PS. For those asking, the band name was initially just “Publicist,” but then it turned out there was already an artist using that name. So, rather than pick a new name, it was decided to pay tribute to London Suede, Charlatans UK etc and just add “UK.” In retrospect, this was kind of a crappy thing to do to Sebastain Thomas, the original Publicist artist. He was very nice about it, and seems to be thriving. Regardless, here’s a couple of his albums. Life is hard enough without your peers making it harder, you know?
https://valcrondvideo.bandcamp.com/album/slave https://ditherdown.bandcamp.com/album/hard-work
*CORRECTION From Obuchowski: “I'm like 99.999% certain we recouped last accounting run. In fact, I think I owe you guys like $11 each assuming we split everything equally. (I also continue to pay the LLC state fees...so actually I don't think I owe you anything.)”