Just because Justin Manlove screams a lot, wears a blue British mohawk and has tattooed biceps bigger than your head doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to kill you. But if he did, his band’s music might make for a good soundtrack.

Dollface – bassist/singer Manlove, guitarist Matt Gibson and drummer Tank Murk – delivers a rowdy punch-up of melodic hardcore driven by guitar sleight-of-hand and vocal bludgeoning. Even the band’s apparent theme song, “Dollface,” is an ode to ass-kicking, with a chorus refrain about “the blood spilling from your neck to the floor,” or something along those lines. Yikes.

The members lists a wide swath of punk and post-punk bands as influences on their music, from Comeback Kid and Jimmy Eat World (explaining the melodic slant) to Snapcase, Jawbox and At the Drive-In – oh, and Hall and Oates. “They have awesome melodies like we do, and killer vocal harmonies like we do,” jokes Gibson.

Manlove and Gibson have been knocking around the scene in different bands together (including Run Run and Allison Hill) for the better part of a decade. Tank, meanwhile, was touring the country in local and national bands like Inhale Exhale and Last Tuesday.

“Dollface has been in the making for about three years,” Manlove explains. “Matt and I played with a couple different lineups before we found Tank, but things really never clicked until Tank joined the band. So, we look at it like we started eight months ago.”

The experience so far?

“Besides dealing with these dickheads, it’s been great,” Manlove laughs. “This has been my favorite band I have ever been in. I can’t say I see an end to it any time soon.”

“I think being in this sort of new, local-type band is a very humbling experience,” Tank adds. “ It does leave us with a lot of space for improving and building a solid fan base. People seem to be very encouraging.”
Early reaction has indeed been positive, especially around the band’s home base of Harrisburg, where Dollface is already a regular fixture. Finding likeminded bands to share a bill with hasn’t always been an easy task, Manlove says, but they’ve made the best of the situation. (After an Allentown gig with the self-dubbed “world’s worst band,” Green Jelly, Manlove even got to wear the infamous Shitman suit. When life hands you lemons …)