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The Sounding Board

Lifeguard make a splash with debut LP

A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.

Ripped and Torn

Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.

Ripped and Torn’s charms aren’t singular, but that doesn’t make the debut album from Lifeguard any less likeable. 

The Chicago trio’s first LP is a 12-song blitz of lo-fi guitar music that doles out warm-toned buzz and hooks in a ratio that slightly favors the feedback. Their sonic palette draws from the same crumpled box of slightly melted crayons that Cloud Nothings, Smith Westerns and No Age all used to messily color in their noise-filled early works. It is extremely charming to hear Lifeguard crack open that carton, grab some squishy wax with a peeled label and set to work on their own scruffy art.1

Despite a shambolic sound and a paucity of previously recorded material, Lifeguard have some big ideas. Ripped and Torn‘s version of scuzzed-out rock incorporates two-part harmonies and a post-punk twitchiness that give the album more urgency and dimension than anything on Endless Now by Male Bonding or Hippies by Harlem, to pick two example LPs from when this sort of music was last in vogue.2 The relative sophistication and thought-through interplay don’t add up to create a smooth listening experience. Imagine two Jay Reatards exchanging verses that occasionally overlap while backed by Gang of Four rhythm section, then top that off with a heaping helping of mud-caked guitar, and you’ve got a good idea of how “How to Say Deisar” sounds.3

That song is chaotic. So is most of Ripped and Torn, but Lifeguard manage to make the jagged pieces fit together with aplomb. A keen sense of melody goes a long way toward making that happen. “Under Your Reach” takes nearly a full minute for feedback to give way to a proper song, and repeatedly includes a percussive thud and recoil that sounds an awful lot like a pot lid striking the floor and wobbling on its rim. That track also features some of Ripped and Torn‘s most straightforward garage rock harmonies, which make the total package work.

Locked-in familiarity and talent are key ingredients, too. Kai Slater (vocals and guitar), Asher Case (bass) and Isaac Lowenstein (drums) have been playing together since high school, which their band bio helpfully notes is nearly a quarter of their lives.4 It’s not a surprise that Case’s beefy basslines fit like a glove with Lowenstein’s dynamic drumming, but their grooves’ ability to coexist with Slater’s reverb-drenched guitar is both impressive and consistent. The moments where Case and Slater play more or less the same melody like the intro to “It Will Get Worse” are a joy for the sheer mass of the stringed-instrument noise being generated, but they’re even better when they each get some space to breathe.

Closing track, “TLA,” is a prime example. Slater and Case take turns in the spotlight with Slater’s catchy riff typically leading the way, but Case steps into the spotlight for some nimble pre-chorus rumbles throughout. These nifty moments of tradeoff that bring necessary variety to a song in which “TLA” is sung out as “teeeeeee ehhhhhl ayyyyyy,” 10 separate times across three and a half minutes. If Lifeguard weren’t as good as they are, it’d be annoying. Instead, “TLA,” is damned catchy and an album highlight.

That song showcases a gift for turning a simple set of syllables into a hooks that rest on a foundation of noise that recalls songs like “Heartbeat” by Cloud Nothings and “Here Should By My Home.” That’s exciting. Lifeguard were already a band worth keeping a tab on, and now they have a more-than-solid album under their belt. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they continued to grow and excel, just like their like-minded, noisy peers from yesteryear.

  1. Randy Randall from No Age produced this album, and it sure sounds like it. ↩︎
  2. I adore both of those albums, but throbbing bass and driving drumming were not hallmarks of their sound. ↩︎
  3. The feral garage rocker with a chaotic tenor born James Lee Lindsey Jr. profoundly bums me out. His stage name wasn’t especially clever at the time, and it’s only gotten uglier with time. Sadly, that’s time Lindsey didn’t get. He died in 2010 at age 29, which denied him the chance to grow past the edge-lord name and shortchanged the world some great music. ↩︎
  4. If I had been playing music with someone since high school, that would make up over half my life. Last year, I threw my back out getting up from a chair. And it’ll happen to you. ↩︎