by Ted Davis (@tddvsss)
Working from home in an apartment with three people has been a unique adjustment. One positive thing that has come from grinding in the same room as my friends is our shared aux cord. Over this past summer, as the lung crushing Northeast Los Angeles smog and sun sickening heat kept my quarantine pod and I locked indoors, there were always new records playing as we went through the motions at our various post-grad gigs. Though it was fun to explore new music with my daily companions as we whiled away the workday together, it was rare that we were all collectively excited about the tracks we were bumping. From the urgent, technical guitarwork of opening track “Non,” to “Cricket Song Through Open Window’s” Jim-O’Rourke-meets-K-Records-style ambient outro, Portland, Oregon quartet Lithics’ sophomore full-length, Tower Of Age, was a record that immediately captivated everyone in the room. Jamming thirteen tracks into just over half an hour, the album is one of the most enthralling, toe tapping post-punk records released in recent memory.
Over the past few years, post-punk has seen a unique and invigorating resurgence. Artists like Crack Cloud, Squid, and Dry Cleaning all use technical maximalism and genre-bending songwriting to deconstruct people’s notions of what rock music can mean. Even though there are familiar elements that churn through these albums, as a whole post-punk in 2020 is starting to feel more like post-post punk. While this development is compelling, it can also be overwhelming.
With their compact arrangements, short run times, and impressive musicianship, the tracks on Tower Of Age offer a refreshing return to form for the genre. While the record may harken bands like Gang Of Four and Wire, the music singer Aubrey Hornor, bassist and multi-instrumentalist Bob Desaulniers, drummer Wiley Hickson, and guitarist Mason Crumley make never feels like a rehash of the acts that came half a century before them. Instead, they somehow channel the same stripped down authenticity that makes records like Entertainment! and Marquee Moon so seminal and timeless. It leaves no question as to why Lithics’ 2018 debut, Mating Surfaces, saw the band immediately become labelmates with legendary Kill Rock Stars acts like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Sleater-Kinney.
In the age of digital music, the studio is more of an instrument than ever before. The ability to spend countless hours futzing around with VSTs and plugins is one of the most fun aspects of making music on a computer, but Tower Of Age refreshingly employs stripped down analog production to capture the energy of the band’s simultaneously sweaty and buttoned-up live set. There is nary-a-sound on the record that couldn’t be accurately replicated on-stage. As Hornor deadpans the lines, “You take a walk / you take a walk with me” over a barren rhythmic backdrop on the track “Hands,” Lithics do nothing to leave listeners guessing about the formulas and techniques behind their arrangements and songwriting. The genius of Lithics is the band’s stark, unfiltered directness. The act does nothing to obscure or mask what they are capable of as players, and by laying it all out on the table, exude a refreshing confidence that sets them apart from their bountiful array of musical peers.
Desaulniers and Hickson are one of the tightest rhythm sections to emerge in recent memory. With their thick, churning, hypnotic grooves, letting the record’s unprocessed straight-to-tape sonics take the backseat was a flattering and impressive creative choice. Because I’m able to easily make out all of the instrumental elements on Tower Of Age, every time I’ve finished spinning the record I’ve immediately picked up my own bass and tried to write similar chromatic and propulsive riffs. The pockets the band settles into on the tracks “Twisted Vine” and “An Island” beg to be tabbed out and uploaded to ultimateguitar.com. Lithics’ musical immediacy inspires me as much as an instrumentalist as it resonates with me as a listener.
The members of Lithics clearly have a lot of integrity as musicians and artists. As much as the quartet walks the same walk that made their forebears like Richard Hell and Alan Vega so effortlessly cool, they also capture a playful and arresting energy. Tower Of Age is a commanding record that defines the verve in any room that it comes on in. Its acute and wide eyed ethos explains why Lithics have shared stages with acts as prolific as Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks and Wilco. While it may have flown quietly under the radar, Tower Of Age is one of the most bewitching guitar-driven records I’ve stumbled upon in a very long time.