lié/Caribou
lié
You Want It Real // Mint
Vancouver trio lié (pronounced lee-ey) return with You Want It Real, a ferocious 8 track LP released on Feb 28, 2020 through Mint Records. On the band’s fourth album, lié continues to pair intense musical performances with smart lyrics, but the inclusion of legendary punk producer Jesse Gander (White Lung, Japandroids) helps the band sound as in-your-face on their recordings as they do during their live shows. While Gander’s production is a secret weapon on this album, this trio knows what they are doing. You Want it Real makes it clear that lié should be considered the future of punk music in Canada and they’ve been building up to a record like this for years. Previous releases have hinted at the vigor and musicality found on this album, but on You Want it Real, lié is even more confident and assertive and as a result have created their most real sounding record to date.
Album opener “Digging in the Desert” starts with a short bit of feedback which leads into a fast, catchy, rough sounding guitar riff. After two runs of the riff, drummer Kati J launches into a classic-punk rhythm while a vocal grunt simultaneously cuts through the noise - informing the listener that lié is not playing nice on this album.
You Want It Real sounds like what Hole could have created after Live Through This if Hole had delved more into their punk-rock roots and not pushed into the polished pop-rock territory. Lié’s musicianship is quite evident on this album and the band is not afraid to throw unexpected turns into their songs. This skill set has been developed over the years thanks to extensive touring and recording, but also due to the fact that both Brittany West (bass, vocals) and Ashlee Luk (guitar,vocals) sweat it out in acid/rave/techno projects Minimal Violence and Sigsaly. A perfect example of lié demonstrating their confidence with songwriting is “You Got It” - a two minute song that starts so fast and with so much intensity that one fears it may go off the rails as all the members are performing at maximum power. But then halfway through, the band drops into a more melodic groove - still heavy, but this moment of relief allows the listener to briefly catch their breath. Suddenly lié kicks back into high gear and closes out the song with the repeating lyric “I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it all”.
As lié continues to broaden what it means to write and perform punk music, not only will they keep building critical acclaim, they will continue to inspire youth to pick up instruments, form a band with their likeminded friends and use their brains to write passionate music. Punk continues to evolve and bleed into other genres, but punk will always mean not playing it safe - and lié is not playing around at all. This is serious music that is seriously great.
- Greg Torwalt
Caribou
Suddenly // Merge
Caribou (aka Dan Snaith) sure likes to keep his fans waiting for new music. The new album Suddenly marks his triumphant return after six long years, and as a huge Caribou fan, it was definitely worth the wait. While Dan Snaith has kept busy making dance floor oriented tunes with his Daphni project in that time, this new album seems like the two projects are slowly becoming one. While Caribou’s last album Our Love (2014) was a slightly more polished understated affair with a meditation on a singular theme, this release is Caribou at their most dynamic with tracks brimming with wild musical ideas.
Caribou’s creative juices are overflowing throughout the record as close friend Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) helped narrow down about 900 different tracks that Caribou had produced over the past few years into a jubilant and reflective twelve track album. The biggest surprise is the heavy presence of Snaith’s vocals in almost all the tracks. While past Caribou albums did featured him singing, a lot of time it was hiding behind effects or reverb. However, on the softer tracks such as Sufjan Steven-esque “Magpie”, and the opening track “Sister”, Caribou’s vocals seem more vulnerable and uncluttered as he deals with sudden changes in his own life. Meanwhile, signature flourishes that he’s been perfecting over the last 20 years are also on full display. One of the album highlights “Home” samples an obscure soulful Gloria Barnes track from the 1970s by the same name, but Caribou transforms it into a bright, life-affirming song with warm boom-bap percussion that harkens back to time when he used to make music under the Manitoba moniker. On the other hand, the track “Ravi” is a perfect example of where the Daphni and Caribou projects are synthesizing into one singular beast.
Suddenly is the culmination of all the music Caribou has made under different names in the last 20 years and without a doubt its his best album to date.
- Piyush Patel
