by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Earlier this year Chicago’s Lifeguard followed up their full length debut with a new single, Receiver, released via Chunklet Industries that found the young band adopting a nuanced and patient approach to their music. The trio are back with another new single and once again their progression as a band continues to be stunning. Taking Radar b/w Loose Cricket, due out October 29th via Chunklet (Man or Astro-Man?, Honey Radar, Spodee Boy), comes with the resilience and technicality of Unwound in their youth, built on dynamics and tension. It doesn’t even need to be said that the band are in their teens, but it does make it all the more impressive.
The single’s a-side, “Taking Radar” is slow and pensive, as much reliant on mood and tonality as it is the band’s off-kilter yet dense rhythm and the bent dirge of the guitar chords. The band lean into the discordance with steely post-hardcore seriousness, working with extended atmospheres and eerie moments of calm in order to ultimately peel back into a blaze of glory. For “Loose Cricket” they let that intensity rage throughout the song, with spoken-word vocals the only respite from the otherwise controlled chaos of the song’s blistering instrumental.