Review Roundup #7: Lighten Up, Ludlow Lions, Summer People, Wormed

Lighten Up – Absolutely Not

I like Absolutely Not for its objective, but can’t submit that it is not overwrought. Lighten Up have points to make – hardcore (certainly in a Torontonian sense) is so goddamn dismal of late that even its d-beat slave-driver’s whips don’t hide its unrelenting pouty lip. Make A Difference is now Make A Difference, But You Probably Won’t. But hey,  I love heavy hardcore, and find that when auteurs like Cursed are in command of the PA system, all hell breaks loose in all the right ways. To combat the former phenomenon, Lighten Up crank out harmless and enjoyably disposable hardcore-punk euphemisms, but are too obvious when tingeing them with conventional radio-punk licks and sing-a-longs.  It has to be deeper than that; the urgency is just not there for me, even if the members’ encyclopedic understanding of hardcore is apparent. It’s valuable in that it’s confrontational (as good hardcore should be), but this outing lacks the stiff upper lip necessary to truly show up its competition.

(6.0/10)

Ludlow Lions – No Stories

My praise for this disc stems from the same place that allowed me to love Look What I Did’s Atlas Drugged earlier this year; let me get this out of the way – No Stories is a brilliant collection of tracks that exude an astronomic ambition via its humble alt rock mold. Yeah, I hear some Doolittle in “We’re So Proud Of Doom”, and “Scopes Climbs A Tree”, but also highs that borrow from more recent output such as Do Make Say Think or Jaga Jazzist in “There’s Always A Wishlist”. The first six songs express an energetic rasp that employs a genuinely progressive bass presence and cleverly placed vocal delivery (again, the Bobby Vinton meets Pinkerton climax of “Scopes Climbs A Tree” is some of the best stuff I’ve heard this year). The latter batch of songs play it safe, letting the outfit’s aptitude to form hooks take the wheel – hardly a slight; it’s an effort that plays from an experienced hitmaker’s sensibility when rewarding an audience’s predictions, yet alternates with left field (and compelling) chord structures. The prickly pear edge that made the opening tracks sizzle does recede to a more contemporary indie gloss, but in no way endangers No Stories’ reputation.

(8.5/10)

Summer People – Good Problems

Summer People play a reliable brand of folk that appeals to a grander North American mythology – the great outdoors, its modest… folks, and the endearing baby bears that scale its trees as per Good Problems’ packaging. The minute plus duration of the opening track certainly gives this feeling, and when siphoned into an urgent concrete stairwell of urgent post-hardcore (a la Pianos Become The Teeth) as does intermittently throughout Good Problems, a collective brand of magic digs in. Is this a band confusing what they want to be? Certainly not – they’re merely realistic. This outfit has a palette of emotions they want to touch on and are thus not afraid to move their venue from quiet church to hole-in-the-wall hardcore club (and back again) to do so. Yes, the duration of tracks are not jarring so much as they are encouraging to exceed the precipice that melancholic (read: ultra hip) indie rock defines for itself. They are simply more far reaching. This is the true folk sensibility, possessing vigor and, well, sack. At all times does Summer People thump like a folk group should, energizing its listeners rather than making them feel uber kewl for fifteen minutes before another band with an even more of a whispery voice hits it big. This is folk I can endorse.

(7.0/10)

Wormed – Quasineutrality

After some minor lineup restructuring, Spanish brutal death weirdoes Wormed offer some (surprisingly) incredible post-Planisphaerium material. Wormed always had slightly more listenability than their soundalikes as far a production quality goes, but never before Quasineutrality has guitar tone sounded so fierce and yet so crystal clear in this field of music. And why not? Wormed are shooting for the stars, lyrically professing love or confusion or hate or something revolving around molecules or alkali earth metals or some shit. Wormed are beyond compassion or even this solar system– these are slams for quarks and fucking neutrinos, with all the PHD prose translated to their guooooweeeooouuuuurrrrrd language that only they understand.  And yes, despite clocking less than ten minutes, this effort out-slams Chapters Of Repugnance in numerous ways, and through an incomprehensible kaleidoscope of brutality I previously thought untapped. So it sounds great, Phlegeton actually plays a mean kit (those hyperblasts make me feel like Sideshow Bob stepping on garden hoes in fast forward), and it out-brutalizes all that came before… naturally – but there are brilliant moments in the writing that channel even the great Gorguts but do not borrow from them. It makes the whole piece dreamy, and dare I say, a modern brutal death work of surrealist art.

(9.5/10)

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