The Lies
Resigned
Kill Rock Stars
And the new wave of old wave continues, this year’s entry being The Lies’ Resigned debut. Like the mid-‘80s goth-punk of Christian Death with restraint and subtlety, yet equally enamored with the funereal chorused-guitar n’ keyboard dirge of The Cure’s Faith, The Lies emanate a simultaneously time-locked and timeless vibe that’s all but lost in modern post-punk, listless echoes of spiraling clean-channeled guitar wafting away into the abyss, ghostly blurbs of synth bubbling just above the pallor. And at ten songs in 41 minutes, the band’s compositions tribally trudge along a trance-inducing path backwards in time, the utterly disembodied vocals following in kind. Really, there’s no other way to put it, other than that Resigned sounds old, batcaved analog production included. Deathly pale and lifeless as they come, but beating to a beautiful pulse not of this earth. Nice.
Kill Rock Stars, 120 State Ave. NE #418, Olympia, WA 98501; http://www.killrockstars.com