LEWD ACTS - Black Eye Blues

LEWD ACTS
Black Eye Blues
Deathwish Inc.

Couple of years ago I got on the trail that LEWD ACTS was leaving behind. By no means were they being hyped by everyone and their mothers. What reeled me in was the talk of an intense and un-easy band from the west coast. The more conventional and "straight" members of the sub-culture complained about the band being too dirty, obnoxious, "going through emotions", difficult to categorize and that they didn't really fit in the clean-cut atmosphere heralded by many a message board warrior. Naturally, I was intrigued as all hell and needed to check them out. They sounded different enough and carried themselves in a manner sure to piss a bunch of people off. And the kicker is, they didn't look like they were trying. I made a point to remember Lewd Acts and listen to them later.

This is one of the most noticeable records this year. It seems to be falling apart due to the intensity it carries but it all holds together by a shoe string and creates a almost seamlessly cohesive whole that is impossible to ignore. The only song that derails said cohesiveness for a moment is "I don't Need You" due to its slight rock 'n' roll influence, but still it's dark enough and void of r'n'r posturing to make it better than most rockish hardcore/metal songs this year. That's saying a lot. Here end my compositional complaints.

What is also noticeable and praise-worthy is tangible impulsiveness felt with each song. LEWD ACTS seem, despite a short history as a band, to have mastered the art of using impulsiveness work for them to filter the meh-moments away from the ones that actually need to get heard and channeled and thus "deserve" to be on Black Eye Blues. No fillers - no over-thinking - just rage, intensity, moodiness, blues, melancholy, the raw and gritty.

To sum all up the word maturity seems like the best fit. There´s nothing particularly youthful about the way this band sounds and Black Eye Blues is better for it. Maturity doesn't have to go hand in hand with stagnation or daftness. Not at all. LEWD ACTS is a shining testament for just that. Furthermore, this type of maturity often opens up for more individuality and the ability to step outside of trends and genres that often provide young artists with safety - a shelter. There´s very little safe about this band. Save for the some aspects of the sound on the record.

Even though its sound is loud, distorted and dark, I was hoping for more sparseness and organic looseness, for a lack of better term. What I'm trying to say is that the very idea I have about this band from afar is that it´s all bruised up, open wounded and beat. I'm calling for more rawness, more fragility and even moments where mistakes, surprises and unintentional or unplanned moments in performance happen and are left in the final mix. Maybe these moments never happened, but I doubt it.
The bass tone is devastating; it's rich and cuts through enough to be heard, making each song more raging and heavy had it not been so frontal in the mix. The vocals are something that needs to championed as well. It is distinguishable enough to be made out in a sea of hoarse screamers and crooners. Great pronunciations and accents on words that fit the riff structures and musical pattern.

The lyrics, well written and far from ambiguous, carefully avoid pretentiousness even though there are a lot of poetic moments that owe a lot to the beatnik of old rather than the the unnecessarily melodramatic, self-loathing and self-pitying lyrics found in songs by young writers that try too hard to swing from Morrissey's or Robert Smith's nuts. LEWD ACTS' lyrics also make use of what I sometimes refer to as snap-shot story telling. Where a narrative is found within the song or between two or more different songs, helped by character dialogues or monologues added to the more conventional lyric format.

From "Penmanship Sailed":
light blue lines guide
the sentence i gave myself
written in repetition:
"i want to disappear, i don't belong here."
the greener grass i strived to reach
is just broken glass in the sand of the beach
that rolls its wavy tongue at me
broken glass in the sand
letters to a younger me read:
"hey kid, where do you get off?
those punches you're pulling are still too soft
give me one on the chin
give em one in the guts"

There's no need talking about individual songs here. They are all good and some of them are fucking great, to put it in the simplest terms possible. These guys know what they are doing. They are talented songwriters with a focused artistic vision and they obviously know how to get the job done 'cos Black Eye Blues not only rips on your face, it is also memorable, intimidating and serious business. Easily one of the best new bands in extreme music today. You'd be a fool not giving this a close attention. File under: "not for kids".