BY: J.B. Stone
Last summer, I headed on over to what would be my third or fourth house show for one of my favorite bands, Tina Panic Noise. A band which has truly helped reignite the punk scene, but has also lifted the voices of the ever-growing LGBTQIA+ community here in Buffalo, NY. I was a sweaty ball of late June heat exhaustion, cramped inside the oak panel confines of a café nestled in the drunken, stumbling heart of Buffalo’s Allentown district. Yet it was all worth it. An incredible release party for their latest EP, White is the Color of Death. At the start of the show, Isabel Cirilo, the lead vocalist, joined by rebellious musical cohorts; Shen on bass, Maxwell on guitar and Justin on drums; gave a brief, yet riveting speech addressing the growing number of murders among trans women across the U.S. and as one herself, had no problem saying: “I am sick of seeing my people die for being who they are, and I just wanna say I am no longer just fighting you, I’m fucking coming for you!”
This unbridled rage carries its weight throughout the album as a soundtrack for every broken home, every maimed childhood, every moment where a bedroom felt more like a panic room. Tracks like “Elinguation” and “Holiday” resemble a mix of Nirvana’s grunge, Minor Threat’s alienation, and L7’s ferocity. The band unleashes an aura of once-bottled angst onto a populous longing for a misery that understands theirs. No matter the song, Tina Panic Noise ensures that with every bassline thump, every guitar strum, every drum break, every time a lip is pressed against the mic, that these actions are met with a battle cry. One undeterred by the times, one that realizes the turbulent generation, the expanse of bigotry, a president holding a nation and its marginalized communities hostage. Tina Panic Noise may be local for now, but with a courage to flip two birds high and mighty in the air and weaponize dread into a protest, their sound is a defiant hum refusing to go unnoticed.
You can check out their latest EP on Bandcamp or Spotify
J.B. Stone is a neurodivergent/autistic slam poet, writer and reviewer residing in Buffalo, NY. He is the author of A Place Between Expired Dreams And Renewed Nightmares (Ghost City Press 2018) and INHUMAN ELEGIES (Ghost City Press 2020). He is also the Editor-In-Chief/Reviews Editor at Variety Pack. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Public, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Peach Mag, [PANK], Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere. You can find more of his work at jaredbenjaminstone.com and more of his tweets and retweets @JB_StoneTruth