by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
You can’t escape the heat. Thankfully, in the case of Toronto’s Lavoro and their new single “The Heat,” you can simply give in and let it envelope you. The band, whose members have played in Chris, Animal Faces, Fake Palms, Sauna, and beyond, are creating on the colder end of the post-punk spectrum, their music a mix of woozy dissonance, colossal rhythms, and a touch of mechanical menace. The result is austere and careening, laser focused and etched out of discordant futurism. Set to release their self-titled EP on August 11th via The Cooked Raw Label (Sunforger, A Country Western, The Crime Family), the record carries a palpable sense of dread, both in politicized lyrics and in the relentless pounding of their caustic approach to unhinged post-hardcore and no wave tendencies
With the band’s debut single (“Wonderful Dream”) already out in the world, a song that introduced the band’s kinetic knack for electronic punk, Lavoro share another side with their latest, “The Heat.” With a massive drum beat courtesy of Braeden Craig, this one instantly tangles itself into knots, the tension building and threatening to break from the start. Patrick Marshall and Cam Graham’s twin guitar approach is like a barrel of snakes, weaving itself in the cracks, embracing a deadly chaos as they fill all imaginable space. It sounds fully realized and ready to swarm, the cloud of impenetrable layering looming thick against the stabbing rhythms. Marshall’s lyrics hint at a state of paranoia in an increasing police state, obliterating any sense of false safety, which the band are happy to oblige in both sound and overall structure.