Stream Bethlehem Steel Party Naked Forever
Towards the end of Party Naked Forever — Bethlehem Steel’s debut album after five years together as a band — there’s a semi-spoken word track called “Untitled Entitlement” where Rebecca Ryskalczyk rails against being treated like an object in clear and concise terms. “The only people who have truly made me feel uncomfortable are middle-aged white men, fathers of my friends, their fear and repressed sexuality,” she says over a tense and snaking guitar line. “Stop letting your sons rape your daughters/ Stop handing out free murder.” The song stands in stark contrast to the rest of the album, which largely operates in a full-speed-ahead stumble, towering songs that rush to keep apace with Ryskalczyk’s cavernous voice. But it’s an important piece of the puzzle.
Ryskalczyk, who is originally from Buffalo, captures a sort of Rust Belt malaise in her music that makes everything feel rundown and past its prime, but the album is marked by a struggle to set her sights beyond that. Though the songs deal in the deadened nerves of romantic failures and crippling self-doubt, there’s a good-natured humor that hovers over all of these powerful and pulverizing tracks: A search to be free of limitation and expectation, to feel one with the world, to party naked forever, as the title puts it. It’s a complicated journey, but one that’s hopefully worth it in the end.
We’ve already heard “Alt Shells,” “Fig,” and “Finger It Out” from the album, and now you can listen to Party Naked Forever in full below.
Tour dates:
11/09 Brooklyn, NY @ Silent Barn *
11/10 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk Place *
11/11 Cleveland, OH @ Happy Dog
11/12 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean (Downstairs)
11/13 Milkwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
11/14 Minneapolis, MN @ Uptown VFW
11/17 Boulder, CO @ House Show
11/18 Salt Lake City, UT @ Vague Space
11/20 Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
11/22 Portland, OR @ The Know
11/25 Los Angeles, CA @ Junior High
11/26 La Puente, CA @ Bridgetown DIY
11/28 El Paso, TX @ Boomtown
11/29 Austin, TX @ Cheer Up Charlies
11/30 Dallas, TX @ Armoury DE
12/01 Fayetteville, AR @ Backspace
12/02 St. Louis, MO @ Sinkhole
12/03 Nashville, TN @ Drkmttr
12/06 Columbus, OH @ Middle Earth
12/08 Washington, DC @ Slash Run ^
12/09 Philadelphia, PA @ All Night Diner ^
12/10 Brooklyn, NY @ Babys All Right
* w/ Record Release Show
^ w/ Washer
Party Naked Forever is out 11/10 via Exploding In Sound. Pre-order it here.