In the jade-growing climes of online rock journalism, the “the band has a new album” angle is about as interesting as watching Instagram videos of your brother-in-law's recent bathroom remodel. But when does a band decide to continue with their last album from more than 26 years ago?
That has a lot of testicular strength and is as dumb as fidget spinners. However, when that band is Jesus Lizard, everything in your pathetic cultural dystopia suddenly disappears and the air smells like heaven… Their seventh studio album, Rack, produced by Paul Allen and scheduled for release on September 13 via Ipecac Recordings, includes 11 tracks of energetic guitar rock that you haven't heard since… the last time Jesus Lizard took a stage in your city. The Jesus Lizard: vocalist David Yow, guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly, have returned with an album packed with the kind of madness necessary to defeat current AOR mediocrity and perfect pop silliness alike.
Since its beginnings in Chicago in 1987, Jesus Lizard has thrilled audiences around the world. Sims and McNeilly's impeccable rhythm section was the perfect launching pad for Denison's jagged but clean-toned riffs and Yow's mercurial vocalizations that manifest as anything from a panicked citizen, a fugitive from reality, or a injured marine mammal. Jesus Lizard's fury continued through six studio albums, two live recordings and a pair of singles and EPs.
On Rack, the Jesus Lizard have returned reconstituted, renewed and positively accelerated. There are no tepid, bland tracks showing how they have “matured” as songwriters. There are no silly detours into unnecessary genre exercises. And there are definitely no strange moves into experimental realms that feel as artificial and calculated as the top of the Billboard charts. The opening salvo “Hide & Seek” finds Yow singing/sprechstiming with remarkable clarity while his bandmates prop him up with his patented acceleration.
The noir vibes that come from “What If?” is a surprising direction for the band, with Yow narrating the action, as if he were looking at a random person in an airport lounge and making up an elaborate backstory about them. The ominous “Alexis Feels Sick” is inspired by Girls Against Boys/Soulside drummer Alexis Fleisig's cautious take on modern life, which becomes a treatise on man's inhumanity to man.
“Moto(R)” plays from the coolest car in the parking lot of one of those horrible radio-rock festivals. And while we're on the topic of forcing cool into uncool, “Falling Down” reminds us all in just under three and a half minutes how wonderfully badass Jesus Lizards have always been, making our fists clench so . tight, they look like the ends of chicken bones.
The Jesus Lizard. They may not be young, but they will never, ever grow old.
the JESUS LIZARD
JANUARY 14, 2025
THE CENTER OF ATTENTION, BELFAST
DOORS 7PM
Tickets on sale Friday at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster.es
thanks to our partners at www.xsnoize.com
