Another great album from these Florida boys. The vocals are a snarling grumble of fuming attitude. The music is a driving, metallic, distorted force of nature. The two collide in a propulsive discharge of some of the catchiest songs of the year. “Lady Radiation” is my fave with its (sort of) singalong lyrics and stomping beat. Great record.
The righteous, relentless chug of third-album-era VELVET UNDERGROUND has provided a valuable blueprint for enterprising buttoned-up rockers for decades. Based in Rotterdam, LEWSBERG found themselves trekking to this well so many times that they set up living quarters and now bathe in its replenishing waters every morning. On In This House, their second full-length, LEWSBERG dives deep, and if you’re partial to the charms of the MODERN LOVERS, GALAXIE 500, and BETTIE SERVEERT, then you will find much to like here. The album is evenly split between head-down rockers and songs that are reminiscent of a quietly devastating conversation over late afternoon tea. While they hit the marks of the former, LEWSBERG falls just short of nailing the mood of the latter. “The Door” is the kind of intimate yet foreboding studio apartment psych that YO LA TENGO mastered long ago, but LEWSBERG doesn’t quite have the damage to pull it off. The song contains echoes of HUMAN SWITCHBOARD’s “Refrigerator Door,” but falls short of that classic’s dramatic, gawky outpouring of romanticism. We could use a little more of that awkward, doomed, drunk poetry in today’s rock scene. But LEWSBERG aren’t trying to set the world on fire, they’re just trying to make it to the coffee shop and get things started. “Cold of Light Day” is the hit, projecting a casually cool, streetwalking confidence that sheds the leather jackets for corduroy and peacoats. With its wire-y guitars, “Through The Garden” satisfies on this front, but I can’t help hoping for an extradimensional “I Heard Her Call My Name”-esque feedback squeal to tear through the time-space continuum; alas, no such luck here. I wanted the “Interlude” to stretch its wings a bit more. I caught a brief glimpse of SPACEMEN 3 waiting outside the practice space door and I was hoping they’d come in and jam. The album ends with such a lackluster last minute that it seems like an inverted punchline. Your mileage may vary.
SPRAY PAINT is a scuzzy noise rock band from Austin, Texas, formed from members of another Austin noise band from the mid-2000s called WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH. This is certainly the most No Wave-heavy release I have heard from either of the groups. Acoustic drums are almost completely stripped in favor of crusty, distorted drum machines. Melodies are replaced with metallic clangs and guitar feedback. Everything here feels more raw and primal than anything else. The record is spacy and moody rather than just purely aggressive. If groups like TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS or DNA are your thing then this will be right up your alley.
Actual noise rock royalty on this one, with King Coffey (BUTTHOLE SURFERS) behind the kit. Throw in a couple of dudes from SHIT & SHINE, and prepare yourself for a beating. Pure and purely demented Texas noise rock, emphasis on the “noise” descriptor. There are layers of magic lurking under the crumbling cacophony of destructed and distorted sound masquerading as “songs,” laying waste to boring genre adherence just as they lay waste to theories of repetition as music. Regurgitating the ghost of KILLDOZER as a psilocybin aficionado roaming Austin alleys at 4:00 A.M. Game over, kids…the grown-ups just won.
Cool release from this group made up of Australian underground luminaries. VOICE IMITATOR has a few modes, but the songs are mostly based around taut WIRE-style post-punk rhythms, with sustained sheets of guitar and feedback like vintage SONIC YOUTH for good measure. There is a frequent high-pitched layer of synth noise that adds to the creeping build-up on tracks like “Chinese Hoax” and “Vilification Brunch.” The vocals on these rocking tracks come across as gruff and reverbed disaffected noise rock diatribes. There are also few unexpected surprises on this record, though. On three songs, the instrumentation is stripped down to slow, distorted electronics with spoken vocals on top, like a dread-inducing poetry reading. These tracks maintain the building tension that the more traditional rock songs have and sound like the quieter moments on a PRURIENT record. The final two tracks are remixes with heavier electronic instrumentation and work just as well as the rock originals. Strong album of serious, mature experimental punk.
