Purling Hiss

Purling Hiss began as a lo-fi solo endeavor by Philadelphia guitarist and songwriter Mike Polizze before evolving into a complete band that expanded the scope of his loud yet hook-driven take on 1990s grunge pop. Once reconfigured as a power trio, the group channeled post-Nirvana slacker guitar rock for the 2013 album Water on Mars, shifted toward classic rock textures on 2016’s High Bias, and delivered an energetic fusion of both approaches with the 2023 release Drag On Girard.

Polizze first used the Purling Hiss name in 2009 for a self-released, self-titled CD-R that contained six fuzzy, corrosive pop songs he performed and captured entirely on his own at home as a recording-only project. While active in the heavy psych outfit Birds of Maya, he performed throughout the Philly indie circuit alongside peers such as Kurt Vile and the War on Drugs, all the while developing additional Purling Hiss material in his basement studio. After the initial recordings, he issued further titles on independent imprints, among them Public Service Announcement in 2010 on Woodsist Records, the Lounge Lizards EP in 2011 on Mexican Summer, and several additional cassette and EP projects.

In 2013 Polizze enlarged Purling Hiss to a power trio; the newly collaborative lineup tracked Water on Mars in a professional studio. The resulting set of distorted, introspective songs leaned more overtly pop than prior work, appearing that same year on Drag City. The following year, while awaiting the next full-length, Drag City brought the early tour CD Dizzy Polizzy to vinyl, reaching back to material recorded between 2004 and 2009 just before Purling Hiss existed. A genuine successor to Water on Mars surfaced in September 2014 as Weirdon, extending the group’s affectionate, skewed reinterpretation of 1990s grunge and melodic slacker pop. High Bias, another collection of noisy yet tuneful, FM-radio-inspired rock, arrived via Drag City in 2016. After that release the band fell quiet for several years as Polizze rejoined his Birds of Maya bandmates for Valdez, their first album in six years, issued in 2019. In 2020 he released Long Lost Solace Find under his own name, a collection of acoustic folk songs. Purling Hiss soon resumed activity, issuing its fourth studio album, Drag On Girard, in 2023. Working once more with Drag City, the band augmented its established grunge-pop foundation with a stronger Dinosaur Jr.-styled guitar approach across eight boisterous, upbeat tracks, the album emerging in late March of that year.