The least interesting thing about Jobber’s debut full-length, Jobber To The Stars, is how they write songs themed around motifs and large-than-life characters of the squared circle. That might sound absolutely blasphemous to say in a point in time when pro-wrestling is arguably at its most financially-booming and mainstream, but it’s probably the right thing to speak honestly about when it’s also become so very uncool to be a supporter of it — especially after it gave us a few promising years where the independent scene’s cultural convergence seemed like it would be redeeming its grandest stage’s missteps. Alas, the heel turn swerve got us again, as it was foolish of us to assume corporate greed and bad politics wouldn’t eventually find a way to low blow us from behind.

Don’t worry — Jobber isn’t leaving that part out of their long-term storytelling throughout the listen. This main event program against mankind’s greatest rivals has been meticulously booked since 2022 when the band founded by guitarist and vocalist Kate Meizner and drummer and vocalist Mike Falcone began mining alternative rock’s loose canons alongside vintage WWE libraries and backyard wrestling events for inspiration. In their debut match in the form of the promising Hell In A Cell EP, they managed to tie up whip smart wrestling allegories about life under capitalism, perverse leadership, and the wear and tear all of that does to a person after taking those bumps daily with riff rockers just as hard to provocative effect.

Rounding out their official Survivor Series team since then is guitarist-keyboardist Michael Julius and bassist Miles Toth, and with that, Jobber To The Stars does something really well in spite of its controversial winks toward WWE tropes: it’s in how the Brooklyn four-piece are now getting ahead of the curve of the modern underground rock’s current obsession with ’90s mainstream grunge, heavy-gaze, and nu-metal revivalism by mixing it up between the ropes with a second look at another classic era in alternative — albeit, on a smaller scale: the 2010s Massachusetts DIY indie rock scene.

It’s the ghost from the past which Meizner and Falcone are all too familiar with thanks to their earlier lives in Western Mass and Connecticut as supporting hands for Potty Mouth, Speedy Ortiz, and MANEKA. Highlights like its opening rumbler “Raw Is War”, the dread drain-swirling “Pillman’s Got a Gun”, and the cerebral sledging of “HHH” imagine the scrappier riffs of those times with a bit more added muscle on their bones. It’s if they’re angling to be the Flywheel version of Nirvana, Deftones, and Hum instead of pandering toward more of the same Pavement, Dinosaur Jr., and Bratmobile clichés. Fizzy, keyboard-driven power-pop on “Nightmare” and “Extreme Rules” get their promo work in chorus form over with bigger personality behind the mic, like the return of the Rentals happening at some house show in Allston.

Taking into account that Justin Pizzoferrato — the recording engineer behind so many of that scene’s quiet classics during its peak last decade — again worked with Jobber in recording the album inside his Easthampton studio, it’s not at all surprising how we’re hearing worlds collide between its mainstream alternative culture touchpoints and their underground indie subversions. While a casual wrestling fan will recognize how Jobber To The Stars‘ storylines reflect the black mirror of our current day, what’s more intriguing is how they’ve perhaps accidentally started the revival of a scene more deserving than that which its song titles derive from.

Highlights: “Nightmare”, “Pillman’s Got a Gun”, “Extreme Rules”

Jobber’s Jobber To The Stars will be released August 22nd on Exploding In Sound Records.

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