Lithics

Reviews

Lithics Tower of Age LP

If you’re familiar with LITHICS from either of their two previous albums, you’re not in for any surprises: they mine similar fields here more or less; usually less, in that if anything, they have stripped their minimalist approach back even further. There are BEEFHEART-ian moments when it seems like someone shuffled the song sheets and each member is playing to a different score. They do allow themselves one third-album stretch goal on “The Symptom”: an extended five-minute jam with Burroughs cut-up speak-sung lyrics. If punk is three chords and the truth, what can we say with one chord? One note? LITHICS’ punk is one note and a question.

Lithics Wendy Kraemer 12″

One of the best groups going, LITHICS makes taut yet nervous sounds that would make sense at a 1981 New York loft party or a 2019 Portland basement. This propulsive collection of fragments was initially released on cassette a couple years back, and here it is just in time for the end of the world in 2020, sneaky secret sounds heard from another room, scratchy instructional dream guitars, sorta SU TISSUE delivery over “You Taste Like the Tropics” rhythms. This feels like an invitation to something that isn’t clear yet (rather than a reenactment), at any rate get it or regret it! Limited to 500!