by Michael Kemp (@themichaelkemp)
Landowner’s second release on Born Yesterday Records, Consultant, is a lean and robust post-punk/post-hardcore album. Packed with a driving sound that often defies expectations, intros long enough to throw you off when vocals kick in, and rhythms that take surprising turns, you can draw a line from The Minutemen and Fugazi. With twelve tracks clocking in at a little over thirty-four minutes, its quality stripped of any fat.
I enjoy different guitar tone sounds such as bright twang or a gritty old sludgy distortion. Though Landowner’s latest full length makes it clear it’s the angular guitar tone that may make me the happiest. Their sound is unadulterated angular, and frenetic, a sound that is focus-enhancing. Even the spoken word piece that opens Consultant is off-kilter.
Western Massachusetts’ Landowner creates a cold post-punk that is gratuitously engaging. Cold in the way a New England winter can be striking and refreshing. They self-identify as minimalist punk, but with all due respect, they are anything but minimal. The music is busy packing notes, rhythms, and vocals tight into each track. If Landowner tuned down their guitars and stomped on some distortion pedals, it would be straight-up hardcore. The music is unrelenting. Yet, every instrument and Dan Shaw’s vocals all have their place, holding hands but not stepping on each other’s toes.
On “Swiss Pavilion” we are given a glimpse into urban planning anxiety and the tragic quest for parking. “Being Told You’re Wrong” is a good swing at toxic masculinity and, no doubt, someone we all know. Rapid-fire drumming is mixed with the shimmering, airy guitar on “Confrontation.” In the song, “Stone Path,” Dan Shaw reminds us, “By staying out of it you could make things worse,” a line that’s been running through my head for the last two weeks. Consultant ends strongly on the substantial “Old Connecticut Money” that is not only sonically terrific, but the title alone hits so New England punk. You’d be doing yourself a real disservice not to pick up this album.