Lungfish - Necrophones
(Dischord)
Preparing to write this review, I was pondering the meaning of the title
Necrophones and discovered that my evil cat had gnawed through my
headphones cord. Then it came to me.
This is Lungfish's eighth record, which is amazing. I've been listening
since their second record, Like Rainbows from Atoms, and am always
happy to see another platter to come down the pike. But they arrive like
surprises, out of nowhere. Lungfish is not a band that people talk
about. To be honest, I don't even know for a fact that, outside of a
couple of dudes I know, that Lungfish is even a band people listen
to. They rarely play shows, and even rarer are their appearances outside
of the greater Washington D.C. area. Yet every so often, a new record
appears.
A friend of mine, after hearing Necrophones, commented that
Lungfish had finally released their second record. While it is true that
their sound hasn't changed much from record to record, when viewed as a
whole, there has been a steady, subtle shift over time. The kind of thing
that creeps up on you, like a pot belly, which seems to have suddenly
appeared one morning, but, when looking back, you realize that its been
there all along.
Back in the early days, Lungfish burned with an intensity that was
palpable. The first few albums were the sonic equivalent of a clenched
gut: tense, tight, and they left you breathless. All of the same
ingredients that made up the Lungfish sound back then are still
present. The heavily distorted guitar still hangs in the air like a
threat, the riffs are still deceptively simple, circular loops. The bass,
their secret ingredient, still bounces, propelling the song along, under
the guitar. And, of course, Daniel Higgs presides over it all like a mad
prophet. Few vocalists have the weighty presence that Higgs does: his
vocalizations feel like those of a man possessed, speaking not because he
wishes to but because he is compelled to by the words themselves. He
doesn't so much sing as pukes up cryptic ruminations that, though they may
seem indecipherable, feel like a condemnation. Consider this lyric from
"The Way," "O the way you navigate the chain of days, O the way your
bloody bones hang suspended, O the way you rotate your world about you, O
the way you collapse into transparency." I can't explain what that means,
but it can't be good.
Lungfish today, on Necrophones, like many of us, is not as nimble
as the Lungfish of yore. They are more ponderous. The songs no longer
speed headlong towards inevitable conclusion as much as they revel in the
moment. This change has been coming all along, and has been especially
pronounced on their recent records like Artificial Horizon and
The Unanimous Hour. It is an appropriate change, lending the music
a more mature, reflective feel.
The songs on Necrophones are heavy dirges. There are some
exceptions, like "Shapes in Space," which is shot through with a quick,
muted riff, or "The Words," a stately, bright march which gives Higgs
lyrics the tone of an authoritative pronouncement. Others, like "Blue
Sky" and "Sex War" have plodding qualities in which every beat of the drum
feels like a pronouncement of doom. In critic-speak, they could be
labeled as a post-punk proto-Godspeed, You Black Emperor.
Dischord has a rich history of artists who are concerned about the social
diseases of injustice, inequity, and greed which rots out the center of
modern culture. Lungfish makes it personal by bringing a psychic protest
on the level of the individual. The result is music which is unpleasant,
but necessary, like an acute awareness of the canker on one's soul. Who
wouldn't want to listen to that?
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