by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Chicago’s Luggage have been refining their brand of minimalist post-punk and skeletal noise rock for the past seven years, devouring bleak composition in delightful new ways. They continue to break new ground with each release, seemingly pulling back pieces until there’s nothing left but the bare bones, and then somehow doing it again. With their latest album, Hand Is Bad, out September 29th via Amish Records (P.G. Six, Jim McHugh, Sunwatchers), the band seem to have peeled things down to a place somewhere between no wave and ambiance. The songs are as much about texture as they are anything abrasive, with room to breath, room to wander. It’s clean but lurking in the shadows, music where every note counts as do the spaces without them.
Having shared the record’s title track, the band offer their next single, “Mirror It,” a song both delicate and in the case of Hand Is Bad, perhaps one of the more energetic performances. Built on a heavy thud behind the kit and in the framework bass density, this one is colored entirely in shades of gray, but it’s still colored. Waves of distortion ripple in a hypnotic motion, the entire song like a fever dream of desperation, the sound of things collapsing inward. With a steady tempo and lead scraping tonality, the band slink into an unlikely groove, a meditation from the bottom.
Speaking about the track, guitarist/vocalist Michael Vallera shared:
“After we finished in the studio, this was the track I personally listened to the most after the final master. I truly love all the songs on the record, but for whatever reason this immediately felt special. It reminds me of biking around the city, moving through the buildings and traffic in an endless blur.”
The band play tonight in Chicago at Empty Bottle as part of the Scorched Tundra Festival (featuring Ak’Chamel, The Giver of Illness, Firebreather, Cloakroom, Portrait of Guilt, and others).