The term ends and winter quickens. You might not be able keep up with the considerable number of big name members of the loud crowd blowing into town these next weeks (I certainly won’t), but they are arriving in spades and demand attention.
Today we look to White Lung, headlining Chop Suey Thursday the 4th. The Vancouver, B.C. punks put out their third full-length, Deep Fantasy, this past summer on Domino Recording Co., following a number of releases on B.C. label Deranged Records. Deep Fantasy doesn’t veer from the path established with It’s the Evil or Sorry in any significant way, the familiar road perhaps accounting for how briskly the already brief 22-minute record passes; they pick the pace they’ve trained for and stick to it. The production is clean and sharp without losing any of the urgency or anger drawn from hardcore punk, and Mish Way’s lyrics and vocals poke at the more melodious side of the genre even as the discordant guitar work comes needling in from the sides with post-hardcore flavors. It all comes off as a harsher version of Superchunk’s speedy indie rock, and it’s not surprising to see Deep Fantasy on so many people’s 2014 EOTY roundups with all the momentum and good press they’ve garnered. They’ll be positively BOISTEROUS tonight. Boisterous.
Joining them are fellow Vancouver band Mormon Crosses and VEXX from Olympia, bringing slower, jangly art punk and rough-hewn hardcore, respectively, to meet White Lung quite naturally from each approach. You can check out their recent stuff at the above links.
Brought to you by KEXP’s punk staple Sonic Reducer.
Geoff Vincent / Carry-On Scumbag / KXSU Heavy Music Director
