The wild theatricality and exploding moral barometer of "666 Chicks", by Los Angeles indie punks Jacob The Horse, from their third album "At Least It's Almost Over" (dropping December 31, 2025), is potently rich, with dense tightly wound musicality and acerbic threads of thoughts that smartly weave social commentary that you can wear around like a coat and ruminate on. AND all this in a Ramones-esque formula of keep it fast, keep it short. Aesthetically I am feeling an amalgam of alt rock and emo punk and politico punk like Eagles of Death Metal colliding with Jeff Rosenstock then colliding with Dead Kennedys (or something like that). I am sure that descriptor may change as time goes on but for me, the best punk leaning songs are about something and this is certainly that.
Front man / guitarist Aviv Rubinstien howls while occasionally chewing on the scenery which is fine with me but the cadence of his words and the weight that they hold is what is beautifully key here. Dive into the band's liner notes about this awesome track:
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[Los Angeles indie-punks Jacob the Horse's Satanic Russ Meyers mayhem-fueled single/video “666 Chicks” imagines women attacking men, to subjugate and eat them, in an audio homage to Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Fast and furious riffs blast us into the California desert as women rebel with fire and bourgeoisie necks in guillotines. Rubinstien recites jocular lines like, “All the sick chicks in this sick chick city will die drowning / Will die in flames / Hail Satan / Will die assassinating men who try to keep them chained,” and “My grandmother Hannah used to throw Molotov cocktails at Nazis / and I’m paying ten bucks for coffee / and writing bad poetry / There’s no hope for me.”]
[“My grandmother, Hannah, was in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland and threw literal Molotov cocktails at literal Nazis,” says Rubinstien. “And here I am, singing my little songs about wanting to be an impressive revolutionary or whatever, when she actually fucking did it. And her daughter, my mom, is like ‘maybe the Supreme Court will help. We gotta trust American institutions.’ And I'm like, ‘Your mom threw a fucking bomb at a Nazi.’ She's like, ‘It's not the same thing.’ And I’m like, ‘It kind of is!’ We’re getting there, and she’s starting to come around, which is how I know it’s getting bad.”]
AND I totally get it. Especially at a time when America has fallen of a cliff where compassion / empathy / and out constitution is going down with it, you realize the cost that was paid and how all those live were betrayed. I am no spring chicken. Like Rubinstien's family and a hell of a lot of families, my immigrant parents were in the thick of it. They experienced fascism first hand. The stories of my mother, r.i.p., being beaten because she would not bow down to the Japanese flag, my Dutch father's relatives who hid Jewish people in secret rooms and my father, r.i.p., who was shot, captured and in a Japanese concentration camp for over 2 years (in what is now Indonesia) until he was freed by Allied forces at the end of the war are experiences, patriotism paid that made those previous generations just better people than us. I distinctly remember when I started to become interested in history when I was a freshman in high school and asked my father if he hated the Japanese. "Of course not", he said, "They were just fighting like we were." I didn't fully understand the gravitas of what he was saying until I got older.
I also applaud the political satire within "666 Chick" and what fuels the fire including the increased attack on women, marginalized people from LGBTQ plus, people of color that the crazies in the halls of power have in their rifle sights sometimes literally. How political power is often times evil personified corrupted by financial power. Jacob The Horse is comprised of the aforementioned Aviv Rubinstien: (Guitar, Lead Vocals), Rick Chapman: (Drums, Vocals), Mark Desrosiers: (Bass, Vocals) and Josh Fleury: (Lead Guitar, Vocals).
LINER NOTES about the Official Video:
[The “666 Chicks” video, directed by Rubinstien, is a cannibalistic horror film where young women overtake and replace the members of Jacob the Horse. Starring Susi Matza, Emily Joy Lemus, Maddie Bernstein, and Jensen Wysocki, drummer of all-female alt-rock band The Maraschinos. “The best punk is done by women right now,” says Rubinstien. From Amyl and the Sniffers and Lambrini Girls to Gouge Away and Mannequin Pussy, Jacob the Horse’s testosterone-filled revolutionary punk is so passé, and this snuff-film of a video indulges us as we watch their demise with eager anticipation.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
LYRICS
All the sick chicks in this sick chick city will die drowning
Will die in flames
Hail Satan
Will die assassinating men who try to keep them chained.
And they’ll yell “burn the witch burn the witch burn the witch”
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
With blood, with lies, with bodily autonomy.
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
with blood, with lies, with leftist ideology
My grandmother Hannah used to throw Molotov cocktails at Nazis
and I’m paying ten bucks for coffee
and writing bad poetry.
There’s no hope for me.
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
With blood, with lies with leftist ideology
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
The ocean’s rise, the wealthy in the guillotines
All the sick chicks
All the six six six chicks x10 or something
And the time has come to rise as one
And wage our finest rebellion
With fire. With fire.
The oceans rise. The necks of the bourgeoise
Oh the time has come to rise as one
And wage our finest rebellion.
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://soundcloud.com/jacobthehorse
https://jacobthehorse.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jacobthehorse/
https://www.facebook.com/jacobthehorse
https://x.com/jacobthehorse
Jacob the Horse - At Least It’s Almost Over LP (dropped on Mar. 20)
Los Angeles indie-punks Jacob the Horse take on the rise of modern fascism, dealing with anxiety, and rallying cries for anarchy and Satan on new album At Least It’s Almost Over (out Mar. 20). It hits that nostalgic sweet spot of classic punk with elements of grunge, while bringing in tight, modern, folk-punk lyrical content that speaks to the time we’re living in now. It sparks equal parts anger and depression, while making sure we’re all having a great time listening. It’s the kind of album that you find at 14-years-old and it changes your life forever, in the same way The Clash did in the ‘70s, Dead Kennedys in the ‘80s, Propagandhi in the ‘90s, Against Me! In the ‘00s and Amyl and the Sniffers today. It’s telling you that it’s okay to be upset, to open your eyes and be part of a movement.
Jacob the Horse is Aviv Rubinstien (guitar, lead vocals), Rick Chapman (drums), Mark Desrosiers (bass) and Josh Fleury (lead guitar). At Least It’s Almost Over was engineered and produced by Jack Shirley (Jeff Rosenstock, Deafheaven, Gouge Away) at The Atomic Garden Recording Studio in Oakland, and includes several updated re-recordings of previously released songs: “The Black Hand,” Keystone State,” “666 Chicks” “The River,” and “Totally Depressed.”
[We jump into the political-punk gunshot that is “Bad New Religion” whose opening lines, “three-two-one / one-two-three / Hang a Nazi from a tree,” tells us exactly the kind of anti-fascist call for revolution this entire record is. It’s an angry indie-punk anthem telling you to get up and do something about the injustice you see around you. “It’s delusional to think that anyone can save us in a way that won’t involve a city burning down,” sings Rubinstien. It’s a song in conversation with bands like Bad Religion and Fugazi, where you see what’s happening to the world and have to do more than just post on social media, or scream into your pillow, to fill that void in your soul.
“There are literal Nazis in the streets of America,” says Rubinstien. “They’re pushing Trumpism down our throat like that old-time religion. Los Angeles is a really diverse city, and it’s one of the frontlines of Trump's culture war against the people of the United States.”]
[“Even if this country falls apart, we won’t be the first on the list to go to Gitmo. We're white, we're men and we're all American born. That comes with a certain degree of privilege, and we want to use that privilege to spit in the face of the people who are doing really, really evil things to our trans homies, to our people-of-color homies, LGBTQ homies, and everyone else. There could come a time when an album like this becomes illegal, that music like this will be considered terroristic speech and no longer protected by the Constitution. I hope that people remember that there's more of us than there are of them, that the day this type of music becomes illegal is the day that a million teenagers buy guitars from pawn shops and start writing their own ‘Bad New Religion’ and ‘666 Chicks.’ Maybe there'll be some anthem, right? Maybe some song or slogan will break through and be the rallying cry of the revolution. I don't think it's going to be our music. It would be awesome if it is. I want someone, somewhere, to write the song of the revolution and that to be of the rallying cry for people to stop all this fucking nonsense. We have to take the cartridge out, blow in it, and plug it back in if we’re going to survive this. Redo the government. Rebuild everything from scratch.”]
Rubinstien grew up in Bucks County Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia, which reared other punk adjacent weirdos like The Dead Milkmen, Ween, Man Man and The Teeth. He started playing guitar at 14 and started his first band at 17, b&d Confusion, that continued until his sophomore year of college.
“Philadelphia is a town full of scumbags,” says Rubinstien lovingly. “Everyone's sort of a piece of shit in Philly. David Lynch called it a forgotten city. It’s a city full of great art, and the rent was cheap so people could survive as artists. I was always really inspired by Philly bands like The Dead Milkmen and The Teeth. It’s all part of the DNA of my songwriting. I wanted to be in those bands, or like those bands. I feel like I have an East Coast, unfriendly demeanor, a bit of a chip on my shoulder, especially on stage. Singing songs in front of people is basically like reading your diary. So my Philly defense mechanism is to start with a fuck-you-attitude as soon as I step on stage.”
[Rubinstien moved to Boston for college, where he participated in the local folk and punk scene and started the band Pray for Polanski (named after graffiti found on his film school bathroom wall). There he met his best friend, drummer Dan Ramspacher. Pray for Polanski put out their self-titled album (2013), where he shared singing duties with Anne Warnock, giving the band a sound reminiscent of John Doe & Exene of X. Ramspacher talked Rubinstien into moving to Los Angeles to chase his Hollywood dreams.]
“I was scared to move to LA,” says Rubinstien. “It was a put up or shut up moment if I wanted to be a filmmaker. I spent five weeks touring with my friends and made a movie out of it.”
Rubinstien wrote, directed and starred in the narrative/documentary hybrid feature film The Anchorite (2016) alongside Ramspacher—about a stubborn guitar player who steals his band’s tour van to play their booked shows solo. He teams up with other musicians along the way and learns he can’t make it alone. It took Rubinstien three years to edit the film, and he’d go on to direct shorts, music videos and the feature film Lizzie Lazarus (2024).
[Jacob the Horse recorded their first, self-titled (2017), album with Grammy-winning engineer Mark Rains (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Death Valley Girls, Tanya Tucker, Alice Bag, Shooter Jennings, Killer Mike). The album hits notes of punk-infused power pop and indie rock. Many of the songs were brought from Rubinstien’s previous musical lives. “Atom Bomb” is a bombastic, ballady, break-up song he wrote while alone on a snowy Christmas in Boston, “Hitchcock Blonde” is a proto-emo song of heartbreak with angular indie-rock guitar riffs, and “Magnetic North” is a love song to the woman Rubinstien eventually married. Songs like “9191991” carry the driving garage punk sound that would continue into later albums.]
The future may look bleak. America as we know it may be close to over. It may feel like there’s no way out of our current political situation, that the damage of this administration is irreparable and it’s only going to get worse for all of us. Throughout it all, Jacob the Horse will continue singing (yelling) about the injustices of our current national nightmare, and giving us a revolution that we can dance to.
Track list:
01 At Least It’s Almost Over
02 Bad New Religion
03 Tympanis
04 The Black Hand
05 Keystone State
06 666 Chicks
07 This Place Sucks Ass
08 The River
09 Clever Cleaver
10 Totally Depressed
11 Red Rain Boots
12 Closer
Album credits:
All Songs Written & Performed by Jacob the Horse
Jacob The Horse, Los Angeles indie rock, alt rock, punk, politico punk,, emo punk, rebel rock, "666 Chicks" (Official Video), third album "At Least It’s Almost Over", modern fascism, angst, anarchy, rock, grandmother Hannah,
All the sick chicks in this sick chick city will die drowning
Will die in flames
Hail Satan
Will die assassinating men who try to keep them chained.
And they’ll yell “burn the witch burn the witch burn the witch”
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
With blood, with lies, with bodily autonomy.
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
with blood, with lies, with leftist ideology
My grandmother Hannah used to throw Molotov cocktails at Nazis
and I’m paying ten bucks for coffee
and writing bad poetry.
There’s no hope for me.
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
With blood, with lies with leftist ideology
And they’ll come for you
What's a girl to do? What's a girl to do?
What's a girl with fire! With fire!
The ocean’s rise, the wealthy in the guillotines
All the sick chicks
All the six six six chicks x10 or something
And the time has come to rise as one
And wage our finest rebellion
With fire. With fire.
The oceans rise. The necks of the bourgeoise
Oh the time has come to rise as one
And wage our finest rebellion.
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/jacobthehorse
https://jacobthehorse.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jacobthehorse/
https://www.facebook.com/jacobthehorse
https://x.com/jacobthehorse
Jacob the Horse - At Least It’s Almost Over LP (dropped on Mar. 20)
Los Angeles indie-punks Jacob the Horse take on the rise of modern fascism, dealing with anxiety, and rallying cries for anarchy and Satan on new album At Least It’s Almost Over (out Mar. 20). It hits that nostalgic sweet spot of classic punk with elements of grunge, while bringing in tight, modern, folk-punk lyrical content that speaks to the time we’re living in now. It sparks equal parts anger and depression, while making sure we’re all having a great time listening. It’s the kind of album that you find at 14-years-old and it changes your life forever, in the same way The Clash did in the ‘70s, Dead Kennedys in the ‘80s, Propagandhi in the ‘90s, Against Me! In the ‘00s and Amyl and the Sniffers today. It’s telling you that it’s okay to be upset, to open your eyes and be part of a movement.
Jacob the Horse is Aviv Rubinstien (guitar, lead vocals), Rick Chapman (drums), Mark Desrosiers (bass) and Josh Fleury (lead guitar). At Least It’s Almost Over was engineered and produced by Jack Shirley (Jeff Rosenstock, Deafheaven, Gouge Away) at The Atomic Garden Recording Studio in Oakland, and includes several updated re-recordings of previously released songs: “The Black Hand,” Keystone State,” “666 Chicks” “The River,” and “Totally Depressed.”
[We jump into the political-punk gunshot that is “Bad New Religion” whose opening lines, “three-two-one / one-two-three / Hang a Nazi from a tree,” tells us exactly the kind of anti-fascist call for revolution this entire record is. It’s an angry indie-punk anthem telling you to get up and do something about the injustice you see around you. “It’s delusional to think that anyone can save us in a way that won’t involve a city burning down,” sings Rubinstien. It’s a song in conversation with bands like Bad Religion and Fugazi, where you see what’s happening to the world and have to do more than just post on social media, or scream into your pillow, to fill that void in your soul.
“There are literal Nazis in the streets of America,” says Rubinstien. “They’re pushing Trumpism down our throat like that old-time religion. Los Angeles is a really diverse city, and it’s one of the frontlines of Trump's culture war against the people of the United States.”]
[“Even if this country falls apart, we won’t be the first on the list to go to Gitmo. We're white, we're men and we're all American born. That comes with a certain degree of privilege, and we want to use that privilege to spit in the face of the people who are doing really, really evil things to our trans homies, to our people-of-color homies, LGBTQ homies, and everyone else. There could come a time when an album like this becomes illegal, that music like this will be considered terroristic speech and no longer protected by the Constitution. I hope that people remember that there's more of us than there are of them, that the day this type of music becomes illegal is the day that a million teenagers buy guitars from pawn shops and start writing their own ‘Bad New Religion’ and ‘666 Chicks.’ Maybe there'll be some anthem, right? Maybe some song or slogan will break through and be the rallying cry of the revolution. I don't think it's going to be our music. It would be awesome if it is. I want someone, somewhere, to write the song of the revolution and that to be of the rallying cry for people to stop all this fucking nonsense. We have to take the cartridge out, blow in it, and plug it back in if we’re going to survive this. Redo the government. Rebuild everything from scratch.”]
Rubinstien grew up in Bucks County Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia, which reared other punk adjacent weirdos like The Dead Milkmen, Ween, Man Man and The Teeth. He started playing guitar at 14 and started his first band at 17, b&d Confusion, that continued until his sophomore year of college.
“Philadelphia is a town full of scumbags,” says Rubinstien lovingly. “Everyone's sort of a piece of shit in Philly. David Lynch called it a forgotten city. It’s a city full of great art, and the rent was cheap so people could survive as artists. I was always really inspired by Philly bands like The Dead Milkmen and The Teeth. It’s all part of the DNA of my songwriting. I wanted to be in those bands, or like those bands. I feel like I have an East Coast, unfriendly demeanor, a bit of a chip on my shoulder, especially on stage. Singing songs in front of people is basically like reading your diary. So my Philly defense mechanism is to start with a fuck-you-attitude as soon as I step on stage.”
[Rubinstien moved to Boston for college, where he participated in the local folk and punk scene and started the band Pray for Polanski (named after graffiti found on his film school bathroom wall). There he met his best friend, drummer Dan Ramspacher. Pray for Polanski put out their self-titled album (2013), where he shared singing duties with Anne Warnock, giving the band a sound reminiscent of John Doe & Exene of X. Ramspacher talked Rubinstien into moving to Los Angeles to chase his Hollywood dreams.]
“I was scared to move to LA,” says Rubinstien. “It was a put up or shut up moment if I wanted to be a filmmaker. I spent five weeks touring with my friends and made a movie out of it.”
Rubinstien wrote, directed and starred in the narrative/documentary hybrid feature film The Anchorite (2016) alongside Ramspacher—about a stubborn guitar player who steals his band’s tour van to play their booked shows solo. He teams up with other musicians along the way and learns he can’t make it alone. It took Rubinstien three years to edit the film, and he’d go on to direct shorts, music videos and the feature film Lizzie Lazarus (2024).
[Jacob the Horse recorded their first, self-titled (2017), album with Grammy-winning engineer Mark Rains (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Death Valley Girls, Tanya Tucker, Alice Bag, Shooter Jennings, Killer Mike). The album hits notes of punk-infused power pop and indie rock. Many of the songs were brought from Rubinstien’s previous musical lives. “Atom Bomb” is a bombastic, ballady, break-up song he wrote while alone on a snowy Christmas in Boston, “Hitchcock Blonde” is a proto-emo song of heartbreak with angular indie-rock guitar riffs, and “Magnetic North” is a love song to the woman Rubinstien eventually married. Songs like “9191991” carry the driving garage punk sound that would continue into later albums.]
The future may look bleak. America as we know it may be close to over. It may feel like there’s no way out of our current political situation, that the damage of this administration is irreparable and it’s only going to get worse for all of us. Throughout it all, Jacob the Horse will continue singing (yelling) about the injustices of our current national nightmare, and giving us a revolution that we can dance to.
Track list:
01 At Least It’s Almost Over
02 Bad New Religion
03 Tympanis
04 The Black Hand
05 Keystone State
06 666 Chicks
07 This Place Sucks Ass
08 The River
09 Clever Cleaver
10 Totally Depressed
11 Red Rain Boots
12 Closer
Album credits:
All Songs Written & Performed by Jacob the Horse
Jacob The Horse, Los Angeles indie rock, alt rock, punk, politico punk,, emo punk, rebel rock, "666 Chicks" (Official Video), third album "At Least It’s Almost Over", modern fascism, angst, anarchy, rock, grandmother Hannah,
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