Labels: Art of the Underground – PeterWalkee – Warm Bath
Review by: Alex Deller
Lemuria and Hail Mary. Now, there are two names I would never have thought I’d be placing side by side in a sentence, but yet we find members sharing the same band. Funny, though, because at the same time this LP brings to mind another disparate bunch of acts who don’t necessarily sit too well together – Salvo Rain, Minor Threat, Infest, By The Grace Of God – while the whole thing somehow still manages to work in a rather splendid manner. On the first spin or two I was fairly impressed thinking yeah, here’s a solid ol’ slab of melodic-yet-caustic hardcore, but by the time it’d had a few more plays I was charging around the flat and mimicking vocalist Matto’s aggrieved squawk whilst trying to put my finger on which different bands they remind me of. Eventually I figured out that it’s not the overall sound so much as the occasional familiar change of tone, chord or inflection that make me want to bellow CONFINED BY CRIPPLING GREED or WHERE IS THE UNI-TAY? at various points throughout Lieutenant’s own raging music, and while that might sound weird or numinous or like I don’t know what the shit I’m talking about it all kinda makes sense when you drop the needle and the tunes blast by – just go check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.