I love Circus Lupus, so from my perspective L.G. Records are doing the lord’s work in putting this thing onto wax. It’s the pre-DC iteration of the band’s 1990 demo, recorded while the original line-up was on tour: nine songs of weird, erratic, highly-eloquent post-hardcore that slopes and slinks with an awkward, stuttering kind of funkiness that’s hard to pin down but equally hard to shake.
While you might be familiar with most of these songs from other releases there’s a joy to be found in noting how things were subsequently tweaked or torqued or changed (barring ‘Tightrope Walker’ and ‘Chinese Nitro’, which I think appeared as-is on the band’s debut single). Despite being a demo, the songs are vibrant, fully-formed and brimming over with arch, snarky life: the music spidery and unpredictable, Chris Thomson spitting out words in a manner that’s equal parts Mark E. Smith and Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr.
Unlike so many dusted-off demo releases, this one sounds genuinely fresh and essential. Everything crackles with malevolent energy, sounding thrillingly ‘now’ while at the same time slotting neatly alongside the band’s later material and that of peers like Crain, Fugazi, Jawbox and Lungfish.