by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
The breadth of Lifeguard’s exploration simply can’t be ignored. For some bands it takes a lifetime to stretch and bend the formula, yet for the young Chicago trio, they’ve been doing since the day they formed. The teenage band, part of the same burgeoning scene as their peers Horsegirl, play with an adventurous sense of volume, tonality, and the kind of raw musical insight that drove the catalogs of legends like Fugazi and Unwound. The band chase their own tangents, digging between post-hardcore dexterity, violent shoegaze, and the refined sense of post-punk precision. If comparisons to their sound can be made, wait a song and they’ll change, as the trio push the possibilities of the three piece in all directions on their upcoming EP, Crowd Can Talk, due out August 5th via Born Yesterday Records (Lawn, Caution, Spirits Having Fun). From abrasive noise to acerbic structures, the band contort and snap back in place, coloring outside the lines only to wind up willfully centered. They’ve never sounded better.
“I Know I Know,” the EP’s lead single is both muscular and grooving, carrying a density that’s quick on its toes. The blunt stabs of guitar are met with Isaac Lowenstein and Asher Case’s rolling rhythm, darting between and against one another for sheer knotted tension, but Lifeguard never let it get muddy. There’s a detached cool in Kai Slater’s vocals as he offers vaguely cautious lyrics, the lines repeating in time without so much as creating the affect of a hook, but more an incessant warning. The whole song carries with it that feel, adrift in sonic danger as they churn and burn their way through the muck. “I Know I Know” feels like another high mark from a band that’s constantly one upping themselves.
Tour Dates:
8/06 - Chicago, IL @ Color Club w/ Domino & Fruitleather
8/09 - Brooklyn, NY @ Record Grouch
8/10 - New York City, NY @ Bowery Ballroom *#
8/11 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s *
8/12 - Washington, DC @ Songbyrd *
8/13 - Baltimore, MD @ Current Gallery *
8/14 - Richmond, VA @ The Shack *
8/15 - Durham, NC @ The Pinhook *
* w/ Dummy
# w/ Horsegirl