by David Wilikofsky
With their first album, Mating Surfaces, Lithics made a strong argument that they were one of the most exciting bands operating today. That album was a tight twelve song set of punchy, angular post punk. It felt familiar (see Shopping as a contemporary) yet still its own distinct voice. There was an austerity and geometry to those songs that separated them from minimalist post-punk bands operating in a similar lane; at times it almost reminded me of the mathematical precision of composers like Bach. Tower of Age more than delivers on the promise of that album. It sees the band doing what it does best, but also experimenting and expanding their sonic palette.
In thinking about the band’s evolution from that album to this one, closely examining the cover art is informative. Both covers deal with abstraction in different ways. Mating Surfaces is all sharp angles and bright colors, which clearly reflected the music within. The album as a whole added up to an aural Mondrian painting; the songs were bright, punchy and had a clear geometry to them. Tower of Age‘s cover still maintains some of that geometry (see the crisp, large rectangles and squares) but also adds freeform blotches. To my mind, it reflects the new approach the band has taken on this album. While they’ve maintained the same basic framework, on Tower of Age they are willing to blur those crisp lines a bit.
There are plenty of songs on this album that could easily have fit on Mating Surfaces (“Victim’s Jacket”, “Beat Fall”), but the most interesting tracks are the ones where they loosen the geometry of their songs. There are some short skits that point towards this direction (“Cricket Song Through Open Window”, “Snake Tattoo”), but perhaps the most notable experimentation towards this end is “The Symptom”. In a typical Lithics song all of the instrumental lines dovetail perfectly, and this song starts out like that. However, it slowly devolves over the course of its runtime. By the end of the track the instrumentals bleed into each other rather than fitting together perfectly, just like the imagery on the album cover.
I’ve used the word abstraction here a lot, and I think it is central to how both the best Lithics’ songs operate. Take “Beat Fall” one of the highlights of the new album. On this song, the vocals of Aubrey Hornor act as their own instrument. Rather than hearing the words, I processed the vocals as an instrument as much as a delivery mechanism for the lyrics. They play off guitar lines, using repeated syllables to create something that functions as pure sound as much as lyrics. Even in cases where the lyrics are easily decipherable, they read like Dada-ist word salad (“Hello hello, are you there? / Thought you’d be more fair / Thought you’d be more fair / The evening chair / The evening chair / Control”). There’s a clear playfulness in the band’s approach to songwriting that never ceases to delight.
Despite the discussion of art and mathematics in this review, Tower of Age is a fun record from start to finish. Lithics were already a band at the top of their game, but it feels like they’ve surpassed their previous achievements here. If you have even a passing interest in the outer edges of rock music, you owe it to yourself to check out this album.