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If Q and Not U is the band that lent Dischord and the Washington, D.C., post-punk scene a long-overdue public-perception update, Medications is the band most likely to turn the clock back again. The trio’s first full-length, produced by Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, sounds a lot like the Ghost of Dischord Past: angular guitar and bass, melodic vocals and snaking song structures. Take a look at the lineup and you’ll see why: Medications features two members from Faraquet, another Dischord guitar band; guitarist and vocalist Devin Ocampo also played in Smart Went Crazy. But aside from its rhythmic predictability, Your Favorite People is a powerful and smartly constructed album. Ocampo and bassist Chad Molter are at their best when they lay off the distortion pedals and harmonize with the winding, higher-end riffs, which happens throughout much of the disc’s second half. True, they may be stuck solidly in the past, but Medications puts a decidedly passionate spin on a comfortably familiar sound.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2005.
