They Can’t Kill Us All

Apes of the State & Sister Wife Sex Strike Split EP

By Quinn McClurg

Radical in acceptance, politics, and performance, two pioneers of the genre collaborate on this split EP: one time-honored and well-integrated, the other new and promising—Apes of the State (AotS) and Sister Wife Sex Strike (SWSS) respectively.

According to AotS’s bandcamp, this split was assembled frantically before their current tour. They dedicate their tracks to the survivors of the Nudieland and Club Q shootings as well as the folks fighting against Cop City and the ongoing Palestinian genocide. The band mentions Tortuguita and August Golden by name.

The title track addresses these martyrs and guardians directly: “They Can’t Kill Us All.” The choir repeats over meandering mandolin, offering promises of unity and accountability: “And if you fuck up, I will still be your friend / Cause we need all of us to fight all of them / And they can’t kill us all / No they can’t kill us all…”

The second AotS track is “I Shot a Gun Today.” The everyday is altered by the realized ease of violence; now, dreams of revolution follow summer travels and workday mornings, swept up in the break-neck pace of everything.

Then, SWSS enters the fray with the title “A Bigger Bomb.” Boisterous and biting, satire builds under banjo chords, climaxing in an anxiety-inducing countdown: “(4) In this land we've stolen / (3) Insurrection is growing / (2) It's not evil / (1) To bomb your people!”

And SWSS closes with “Rotten,” a standard folk punk song—short and cynical, yet aware and action-oriented in rejecting corrupt authorities like “pigs” or senators.

Alternating between action and listlessness, AotS and SWSS demonstrate how to revolt while living under oppressive systemic forces. Though short, this split is perfectly rough around the edges, exemplary of the folk-punk tradition.