Paint Thinner

Detroit punk band Paint Thinner has been putting in the work. The band only released its first LP, The Sea of Pulp, in February, and is already dropping follow-up Hagioscope to the Heart this week, with a record release show on Saturday. While the band is new-ish to the scene, its members are not, featuring personnel from Detroit rock acts Terrible Twos, Fontana, Frustrations, and Human Eye. On Hagioscope, you can hear the band flexing: “Sue” is a nearly six-and-a-half-minute slow-burn, while “Vision Quest” ratchets up the tension with screaming vocals with a hypnotic bassline. “This isn’t anger, and this isn’t escapism. This is catharsis,” the band writes on its Bandcamp page. “Hagioscope is perhaps best understood as the sound of a band becoming, however unwillingly, comfortable with themselves.” Milk Bath and X! Records head honcho Scott X! are also on the bill.