There are individuals who make a tremendous residing by intently monitoring this nation’s youth sports activities leagues in hopes of discovering gamers to replenish America’s school {and professional} groups. I ponder if Matador Information has the same program, however for potential next-generation indie rock stars? The tastemaking establishment established its rep by plucking Pavement, Guided by Voices, and Liz Phair from the tape-trading micro-release deep underground, and up to now decade or so it’s proven a eager curiosity in what the younger persons are getting as much as, ushering younger acts like Snail Mail, Automobile Seat Headrest, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus into the massive leagues after they constructed up various levels of buzz. Extra not too long ago, the “cool mother and father and after-school music packages to Matador Information” pipeline remained remarkably sturdy with the younger Chicago trio Horsegirl, and now it’s given us the younger Chicago trio Lifeguard, an excellent coup by Matador’s maybe apocryphal youth growth division. Raises throughout.
For what a lot of the public will see as a model new band, there’s already simply a lot happening right here. Let’s begin with the truth that Lifeguard is each the figurative and literal brother band to Horsegirl; bassist and vocalist Asher Case, 19, and drummer Isaac Lowenstein, 18, had been each initially members of that group, which additionally contains Lowenstein’s sister Penelope. Case’s dad Brian is within the experimental group FACS and has additionally performed in Disappears and the long-running group the Ponys, and I needed to reality test that Lowenstein’s dad isn’t Jason Loewenstein from Sebadoh. (He’s not, however that might have made sense, proper?)
Lifeguard sit on the middle of Chicago’s buzzing Hallogallo scene, which additionally contains Friko and Dwaal Troupe and is known as after a zine that guitarist and singer Kai Slater started publishing throughout COVID as a method to keep related to the chums he met by the native DIY scene shortly in the beginning shut down. Along with his solo challenge Sharp Pins he additionally launched final 12 months’s Radio DDR, reissued this 12 months by Ok Information imprint Perennial to vast acclaim, and he produced the debut solo album from Stranger Issues actor Finn Wolfhard, additionally dropping this week.
Lifeguard’s early EPs Crowd Can Discuss and Dressed In Trenches had been recorded on the late Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studios, a holy place. Additionally, Case and Lowenstein met in 2019 at a College of Rock camp, bonding over a shared love of goddamn Tortoise. Truthfully, if I noticed a film the place a 12-year-old was opining about TNT deep cuts, I’d roll my eyes and assume a screenwriter was attempting method too onerous to sign {that a} precocious teen Wasn’t Like The Different Children. However it’s a giant world on the market. All types of issues occur.
OK, so we now have a trio of impossibly cool children with a little bit of a pedigree and the kind of intensely shut friendship you may solely have while you’re younger however will spend the remainder of your life chasing (they’re all neighbors who follow their music and watch films all day) who’ve risen to Sizzling New Factor standing, and who’re out right here repping the issues underground music was constructed on however typically loses sight of: group and scene-building by way of tiny spots and zines, handmade objects created in service of creating a subculture the place stressed youths can uncover one another and themselves. There’s rather a lot right here to make you excited, or to make you hesitant in the event you’re moderately suspicious of media narratives which might be virtually too good, too seemingly designed to make your coronary heart swell by touching upon that which has lengthy been sacred to a sure sort of fan with a sure sort of style. We music writers love our narratives, and I’m admittedly clocking in early on the myth-making manufacturing facility. However none of this extratextual stuff ever issues if the music doesn’t ship. Luckily, Lifeguard’s official debut album, Ripped And Torn greater than delivers.
Primarily based largely round improvisations that they later formed into tight, noisy pop songs, Ripped And Torn typically appears like thumbing by the Spin Different Report Information and pondering to your self, “I didn’t know individuals had been nonetheless into these items.” You may have the screeching suggestions and explosive guitar pyrotechnics of Hüsker Dü and the Wipers, the droll, dubby baselines of the Slits (particularly on the title monitor, which retains threatening to boil over earlier than the band undercut the anticipated launch by working sidelong into creeping unfavorable area), the joie de vivre of Bleach-era Nirvana, the head-rush pop of Vivian Women. There’s even a little bit of Spaceman 3’s ands Animal Collective’s willingness to observe an thought wherever it goes, even when it needs to disintegrate, because the collage interlude “Music For 3 Drums” does, charmingly so. However none of this ever feels like a regurgitation of indie rock’s previous. It feels like a renewal, a method ahead.