Ought to I keep or ought to I am going? The Belair Lip Bombs seize the baton and run with one among punk’s animating dichotomies on their debut album, a traditional power-pop rager in regards to the early stage of grownup life when shades of grey begin to overwhelm your rosy image of the way you thought issues would possibly prove. “Ought to I keep right here?/Ought to I say no?/Ought to I say sure?/Or ought to I am going?” frontwoman Maisie Everett sings on “Keep or Go,” looking for an indication to make the choice for her and worrying that harboring huge desires—the album’s titular “lush life”—is simply asking for disappointment.
Because the Melbourne four-piece grapple with the frustration of indecision, of non-committal lovers, of desirous to give up the rat race you’ve barely begun, their greyhound-lithe sound resists getting slowed down. No matter fuels the good antipodean guitar pop bands—the Beths, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, the Flying Nun greats—they’ve acquired it (as acknowledged by Third Man, who’re reissuing the album after its 2023 Australian launch). That is indie rock made to hit proper within the pleasure middle, constructed from a sturdy file assortment (Tv tessellations, Breeders cool, Strokes clear, informal virtuosity à la Pavement) but additionally possessed of a breeziness that belies any clenched examine. “Gimme Gimme” begins in sneering, chin-out “Marquee Moon” lockstep, however loosens as Everett implores, “Don’t go away me excessive/Don’t go away me dry-y-y,” making a giddy waterslide of her helixing vocals. If her lyrics dwell on how draining it’s to should strive at every little thing all of the fucking time, the band by no means breaks a sweat.
The Belair Lip Bombs primarily vault between two modes: a borderline standoffish strut so cool it makes you determined to impress them, and speeding, headlong euphoria. Among the many former, “Strolling Away” holds a self-pitying buddy at arm’s size, its bristling verses giving approach to a slumping, defeated refrain; “Look the Half” builds pressure by way of purposefully ugly guitar stabs and the rising feeling in Everett’s voice as she tries to make sense of an inscrutable situationship. These moments the place they maintain again give the exhilarating and unbridled songs a dam-breaking energy.
Opener “Say My Identify” careens alongside a downhill rail, the rhythm part jangling like a unfastened chain, the center eight bobbing and wheeling as if spoiling for a battle. “Issues That You Did” is an appealingly raucous mixture of Seashore Boys-style harmonies and atonal incantations straight out of the Raincoats’ playbook. It’s jarring to pay attention carefully and notice this sweet-sounding music is asking out a man for sexual assault: Both it undersells the severity of the matter, or it’s a barely unsuccessful try at highlighting simply how banal these experiences are.
