CUVA BIMÖ ‘NEW WESTERN VALUES’

New Western Values is the sophomore LP from Bay Area “post-whatever rock” outfit CuVa BiMö, formed via a Craigslist posting in 2023. After self-releasing their debut album CB Radio in January 2025 and becoming a fixture on the local live circuit, the band began working on what would become New Western Values, out via East Bay label Sell the Heart Records and recorded, produced and mixed by Trevor Gabriel of Cactus House Recording/Dark Satellite. Digging into the band’s self-description of “post-whatever rock,” you can definitely hear the post-punk influence, at times rather prominently, but the band is also firmly rooted in the first wave of punk of the “weirdo”/artsy New York variety, so-called “college rock,” and even some of the early days of hardcore with the bands that were in that scene but have over time been more associated with “strict” punk rather than hardcore in the subsequent bifurcation of the two scenes. Above all, though, regardless of how far afield their influences may be geographically, this is a band “from the Bay, where [they] hyphy and go dumb / From the soil where them rappers be getting they lingo from.”

The title track reminded me quite a bit of the Dead Kennedys—if not Jello Biafra’s distinctive vibrato, otherwise musically and lyrically, an impression I also had on “1027 Graysin” and “North American Champ,” with the latter of which being more like if the Kennedys were mixed with post-punk. “Charm Offensive” is indeed charming, a super-catchy rock 'n roll tune, and “800 Meter Tears” is another catchy number, sitting at the intersection of first wave punk and new wave, with a little Joy Division in there. “Next” is like the Arctic Monkeys but if Matt Freeman of Rancid were singing, whereas “Sound and Fury” is a little more shoegaze-y with some 70s rock. On “Malagradecido,” the band heads to the beach for some surf rock. It’s an interesting but perfectly logical combination of influences, particularly were one to trace the evolution of punk from the mythologized days of rock 'n roll and proto-punk to the alternative explosion of the late 80s and 90s. But as I said earlier, the lasting impression—the “finish” of the wine, if you will—is of the Bay “terroir,” “that,” to quote Burgundy-Report, “‘somewhere-ness’ that bestows certain characteristics to the wines of certain places.”