PATOIS COUNSELORS
PROTECTION RACKET - LP

UPC: 020543016542
Label: EVERNE
Format: LP
Release Date: May 29, 2026
In stock items ship within 48 hours

As the sun goes down in the West, it is more than past due to acknowledge Patois Counselors as one of America’s greatest bands. Protection Racket is the fourth full-length for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based group, who are still riding the wave from 2024, when they put out Limited Sphere and the live-in-the-studio Enough: One Night At The Daisy Chain (all on Ever/Never, natch). On Protection Racket, the quintet—leader and singer Bo White, guitarist Lenny Muckle, bassist Robin Doermann, synthesist Krizia Torres and drummer Taylor Knox—are locked in tight, but they keep the screws loose so that the Southern breeze can waft in and provide some essential lift. Patois Counselors write songs for the twilight, to be played as day slips into night and the possibilities remain boundless, even if only for one magical hour. But what gives Patois Counselors their power is the way they contrast their romantic inclinations with a discerning eye that harshly analyzes and defuses the nonstop stupidity of society in
2026.
“Sheer Radical” condemns the idiots we have granted dominion over millions of us—”What assigns the fundamental?/A whole unaccountable class/Behold Camelot for the vapid lot/Where money is the root of delight.” White’s lyrics are “liminal, though generally pointed,” which means he keeps his eye on the ball and that ball is a fast-moving lump of pure bullshit. “Cop City” opens up like Devo taking a swing at “Paint It Black” before White dismantles the suburban police state and its "application of soft hate.” For a band that draws inspiration from the storied legends of post-punk (Pere Ubu, The Fall, Wire), Patois Counselors, thanks to White’s razor-sharp pen, has consistently written some of the best songs about this terminally online era. “Iceberg Status” laments the “caps lock jockeys on repeat” who “can’t swipe right, can’t swipe left.” Over the last decade, these non-coastal North Carolinians have surfed the self-negating eddies of the World Wide Web with
confidence, dropping bon mots and phrases that should enter the lexicon on the reg. “Generational Riffs” comes rushing in with Hüsker Dü-inspired guitar as White muses on the concepts of legacy and hype, small ambitions and supersized failures. The big drums and oscillating synths of “Flat No” come to a head in sections where the mix sounds like it's disintegrating in real time as White fights to be heard over the sound of confusion. Patois Counselors has a well-established penchant for killer closers and “Outlaw Country” continues the streak as the band outlines the emptiness at the heart of the American dream—the sun has dipped below the horizon and we’re all wondering what comes next.

— Erick Bradshaw
Spin Age Blasters with Creamo Coyl
on WFMU 

TRACK LIST:

1. Sheer Radical 04:05
2. Cop City 02:51
3. Iceberg Status 05:00
4. Non-Zero Love 03:34
5. Generational Riffs 02:32
6. Flat No 04:02
7. Paywall Club 03:29
8. Outlaw Country 04:09