Posts Tagged ‘Lithics’

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RSTB Best of 2018
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Lithics – “Photograph, You Of”
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Lithics
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RSTB Best of 2018

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Features

So, it seems that 2018 is finally coming to an end. It’s been a hell of a year by most standards, but musically its been damn entertaining. Perhaps its fair that there’s some bright spot in all the chaos. Not to diminish the chaos, but when the negativity is at an all-pervasive fever pitch, its feels good to have something to hold onto. I’ll choose to remember 2018 as a banner year for music and for the birth of my second daughter rather than the year that page refresh politics threatened to give me an ulcer any day. Below are my favorite albums of the year, taking care to highlight some that might otherwise get forgotten. They’re in (quasi) alphabetical order with no other particular weight on the list. Keep your eyes out for a few more year-end features this week before I reset for the new year. As always, thanks for sticking with RSTB for these 12-odd years or so.

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Lithics – “Photograph, You Of”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

Following up a biting album for Kill Rock Stars earlier in the year, Lithics waste no time with a follow-up single for SF label Thrilling Living. The first cut traverses similar terrain to the long player, hammered metal guitars lurch and twitch their way through a menacing dance, perching precariously to the edge of mania. There’s an insistent rhythm that underpins this track – dirgey, dogged, and driven. This one hits just as hard if not harder than anything I’ve heard from the band to this point, still oddly hypnotic and catchy in its own way but definitely not looking to soften the impact that those serrated strings pull off with any chewy hooks. Billed as a double-A side, the flip of can only hope to match the open-handed smack that “Photograph, You Of” delivers. 2018 pushes Lithics to the top of the pile of post-punks looking to make good. I suggest you keep an ear on them.



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Lithics

by on ·New Albums, Reviews

When it comes to post-punk these days, I’m a fan of the brittle, parched-throat approach that’s stuffed with bulbous bass and crimped wire guitars. Stow your smokey-eyed goth crooners, I want those guitars to lacerate and the atmosphere choked to hospital waiting room levels of forced air. Portland’s Lithics serve up just the thing, a satisfying album that’s scoring and snapping hooks off like drywall – rough-edged and choking the listener on their dust. The band is bred on a cocktail of The Contortions, Galaxo-Babies and Au Pairs – hiding rusted hooks in their surgical slice with ill intent. The approach is just enough to let the listener wander close before the sucker punch of Aubrey Hornor’s ball peen hammer vocals knocks them sideways.

Perhaps only labelmates Taiwan Housing Project or British dance diviners Shopping are working in quite such frantic strokes these days. But Lithics, unlike their contemporaries in label parentage or their UK counterparts don’t let on the sly wink that there’s fun to be had. Not that you can’t move to Lithics – you can and should, but they inspire a top-button tamped down, full-body jerk that feels manic and draws looks of concern from other occupants of the mashed mass audience. There’s beauty in their dissonance and order to their entropy but there’s menace in their strings and you best not take them too lightly.

If all this sounds like it’s not fun, then perhaps things are too kush on your side of the couch. Anxious energy throttles the sinews and Lithics know just how to draw it out. They’ve created a perfect conduit for shaking the itch that threatens to catch in the lungs. Lithics know you either face the panic head-on or let it consume you. Your choice I suppose.


Support the artist. Buy it HERE.

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