A low-angle, looking-up promotional photograph of the Florida post-punk band Permanent Makeup outdoors under a canopy of bamboo trees and blue sky. Three band members lean over, looking down at the camera lens in a triangular composition. From left to right: Chris Nadeau with short brown hair and smiling down; Susan Dickson positioned lower in the center foreground with red hair and straight bangs framing her face; and James Bess on the right with a full grey-and-white beard and mustache, looking down intently. Green bamboo stalks and leafy branches stretch upward into the clear sky, filling the background around them.Credit: PermanentMakeupFL

Over the last five years, Permanent Makeup has played many of the songs from its new album in the live setting, but they finally come together in one place on Gormless.

Self-released on frontman Chris Nadeau’s No Clear Records (with a cassette coming from Ft. Myers’ XTRO Records imprint), the 11 tracks find the trio—which includes featuring James Bess on the bass and mixing board, plus Susan Dickson on drums and album art—climbing back to the top of the heap when it comes to Florida punk bands unafraid to blow the lid off a room with unorthodox, often looped, rhythm and arrangements.

It’s also the band’s first recording made with aluminum-neck guitar and bass.

“That honed our string sounds exactly where we want them to be. More bite and more sustain simultaneously, pretty fun,” Nadeau told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

Tickets to see Permanent Makeup, Ironing, and Dagger at The Nest at St. Pete Brewing Company in St. Petersburg on Friday, July 24 are still available and start at $5.

Youtube video

Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky

This article appears in July 23 – 29, 2026.

Related

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief…
More by Ray Roa