After emerging from the Chicago DIY scene five years ago, Lifeguard’s long-awaited debut crashes in with loud guitars and drums like a statement of intent. Opening track A Tightwire sets the template for the album: urgent, off-kilter and even slightly disorienting. The youthful trio of Kai Slater (guitar, vocals), Asher Case (bass, baritone guitar, vocals) and Isaac Lowenstein (drums, synth) have played together since high school, which has meant they have a musical understanding and are as tight as the proverbial nut.
Theirs is angular, driving post-punk with audible echoes of the Pop Group, Wire, Gang of Four and the Wedding Present, but they’ve certainly brought their own spin to it. The songs blaze forth with hurtling, mostly indecipherable imagery. They could be yelling “I am the spy on your pillow” or “words like tonality come to me”. What does it all mean? Who knows – but it’s fun thinking it through.
There’s a real sense of drama to the circular-saw guitars, slow builds and cascading basslines, from which spring effervescent tunes and interesting curveballs. Like You’ll Lose is post-punk with a hymnal quality. The weirdly compulsive Music for 3 Drums knowingly references Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, but sounds as if it was recorded during a visit to a rivet-making factory. Some of their most distorted guitars, drones and screeching metal might prove too challenging for many palates, but it’s refreshing to hear a young band make such a bold racket.
