Pardoner

Bay Area quartet Pardoner marry angular, distortion-heavy instrumentation with classic indie rock catchiness, often disrupting one with the other. The band’s equal love of melodicism and noise grew weirder and more adventurous on each release, reaching new heights of exciting strangeness on their third LP, 2021′s Came Down Different and finding a messy, conflicted intersection of Devo-esque riffing, slacker pop hooks, and even hints of noisy hardcore on 2023′s Peace Loving People.
Pardoner was formed in 2015 by schoolmates attending San Francisco State University. The original lineup was comprised of guitarist/vocalists Max Freeland and Trey Flanigan, drummer River van den Berghe, and bassist Will Mervau. They got their start playing house shows and parties, writing original songs that called on the same hybrid of unbridled noise and melody perfected by influential acts like Sonic Youth, Polvo, and the Swirlies. The band released their debut album, Uncontrollable Salvation, in 2017 and followed it in 2019 with Playin’ on a Cloud. Shortly after the release of Playin’ on a Cloud, Freeland left the United States for Canada, and the band fell into a state of limbo.
Before long, however, Pardoner regrouped with new bassist Colin Burris and spent two days fleshing out demos Freeland had been making with the help of like-minded Vancouver band Dumb. The result of their whirlwind studio session was Pardoner’s third album, Came Down Different, which was released in 2021 by Bar/None. The band returned with fourth full-length Peace Loving People in 2023. The 14-song album flew by in just over half-an-hour and included guest vocals from Sinclair Riley of the She's on several songs. ~ Fred Thomas