"A Few Thoughts on Public Disco Porch’s Award Winning Album – Benediction (Released 8/16/24)

​

The massively talented and visionary local band Public Disco Porch is soon to release a new album. I’m about eight months late with this piece, but I’m happy to offer a few words about the work of art that is Benediction, before the new record drops. My son-in-law is in Public Disco Porch, and I’m probably someone you’d classify as a “superfan.” I find a lot to like in both their music and their ethos.

​

Benediction is visceral and haunting—the lyrics, the music, the vibe, all of it. It feels like music that seeps up from York County soil and emanates from its streets and byways .

 

I know York County pretty well. I moved here at 17, which is, in my opinion, the perfect age to assess a town. California is the place of my birth, but York County is the place of my rebirth. York County is the place I began to follow Christ and where I continue to stumble along the path of discipleship.

​

One of the ways I’ve come to know this place is through thrifting here for 23 years. Those who thrift will know what I mean. And if my ear to the ground in this land has taught me anything, it’s that Public Disco Porch has tapped into the soul of this geography.

​

Flannery O’Connor, writing boldly of the American South, said: “...I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.” The music of Public Disco Porch—like this land along the west shore of the Susquehanna, above the Mason-Dixon—is also Christ-haunted. Or, at the very least, faith-haunted.

​

Public Disco Porch is a rock band that reverberates with the spirit of York—its land, its people, its history, its lore, its faith, its sins, and its blessings.

Benediction is a remarkable piece of art. The lyrics feel like utterances—offered as blessings—groping and wrestling in the dark toward the light. You can’t bless before exorcising the demons.

​

Van Gogh’s Starry Night is stark and beautiful, but it’s also a commentary on the church of his day—a church that brought him no comfort. The lights of the church are out, but the dark church remains front and center in that iconic painting. Benediction feels a little like this to me.

​

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann points out that there are both Psalms of disorientation and Psalms of orientation in scripture. Regrettably the church has often avoided those psalms of disorientation. It’s regrettable because they can help lead us into a dangerous yet vital acknowledgement of how life really is.

​

I’ve heard it said that they lead us into the presence of God, where not everything is polite or civil. They cause us to think unthinkable thoughts and utter unutterable words. Perhaps worst of all, they lead us away from the comfortable religious claims of "modernity," in which everything is managed and controlled.

​

Benediction plays like a Psalm of disorientation.

​

It has a genius in its sound—a genius that emerges from the meeting of inheritance and horizon; from what has been told, what can be told, and what is yet to be told. It sits at the intersection of our practical abilities and our relationship to the gravitational mystery that pulls us forward.

​

Public Disco Porch features the music of singer-songwriter Spencer McCreary, with strong support from percussionist Robby Everly, bassist Caleb Miller, and guitarist David Portelles—all hailing from York. I believe they are the most important York band of this era, and Benediction is their most quintessential album to date. It was/is a necessary album for Public Disco Porch.

​

I love this album. The vocals fit the songs. There’s a folksy, rootsy layering to the way the voices are mixed. The lyrics are at turns catchy, bold, and unexpected. The bass—very much in the vein of the band Free—coexists with the guitar to form a massive, cohesive sound. The guitars are heavy, but always in service of the song. There’s almost no showmanship here—and I mean that in the best way. There is no ego. The drums assert a style that pairs beautifully with this genre-bending sound.

​

Now, let me walk through the tracks:

Glossolalia
This opening song is evocative and arresting from the start. It’s engineered with a sculpted understanding of guitar. Glossolalia sets the tone with massive guitars, Zeppelin-esque drums, brilliant mixing, and bass lines that play off the guitar like intuitive twins.

The first song on an album can make or break it. This one introduces Benediction’s themes with a power and velocity that shatters expectations right from the start. In many ways, the rest of the album is about picking up the pieces of that explosion.

​

Matthew 27:52
This is where the pieces begin to get picked up—one by one. There’s tenderness here. Love like friendship. And a defiant questioning—a thoughtful, if nagging, deconstruction of what the gospel writer claims. Musically, I’m reminded of Joe Bonamassa.

​

How Many of You?
Another track that gives Benediction its visceral edge. Is that a viola I hear? The hi-hat syncopation is tight and propels you forward.

​

Of Hexel + Mummix
This one has a very ELO-esque string arrangement, confident drumming, and incredibly heavy guitars—just the right amount of distortion. The line about Johnny Cash, Taylor, Jane Fonda, or Francis (for that matter) slays me.

​

Lecture XII
This song knocks all the pieces you’ve been collecting right out of your hands. It subverts expectations. The mandolin, the poetic break in the middle/end—there’s terror here, along with joy, grace, confusion, and clarity. Like I said: subversive.

​

Transcendence for Personal Healing
My favorite track. Probably because it’s the song that picks up every last piece scattered in that explosive beginning. The guitar and vocal effects catch me off guard with every listen.

​

All of My Body (Final Track)
This one opens with a Radiohead-meets-The Who intro. It makes me feel like the space they recorded in was a canyon or a cathedral—someplace vast and resonant. At the 2:39 mark, the tune shifts into what sounds like the old Charles Wesley hymn Come Thou Long Expected Jesus (1744), based on Haggai 2:7. 

The lyrics of All of my Body are dark, but if you hold them up to the light, you’ll see—they form a benediction.

​

I am grateful for this music and this band, and I look forward to their next offering. I love living in York. I am grateful to have raised my family here. My wife and I love this place. This band and this music feel like part of the landscape that I call my home."

​

​

AARON KUNCE

YORK, PENNSYLVANIA