| Lymbyc Systym can't decide what kind of band they want to be. Are they electronic? Are they indie rock? Experimental? When will I stop asking questions and answer them? Right now. The best part of Lymbyc Systym and their album Love Your Abuser is that they want to be all of these things. The songs on Love Your Abuser veer back and forth from crashing errortronica to sublime indie rock, their deft hand in song construction knowing where to lead the song and when. The influences you can hear range from Explosions In The Sky, My Bloody Valentine, Tortoise, Broadcast, and a lot more. I'd love to see what these cats have in their music collection. Their instrumentation includes vintage keyboards to drum programming to distorted guitars. The album's title track, Love Your Abuser, has glitchy programmed and freaked out drum beats and next to organic sounds like wind chimes. There's thick bass and moog-ish keyboards building into circles and crescendos. Then they hit you with drums pounded out on the real skins. Organic and electronic, at the same time. There's also a jazz undercurrent to some of these songs that reminds me of what I really liked about Stereolab's Dots and Loops... The perfect retro-futuristic hybrid of jazz and electronic music. The horns at the end of Astrology Days sound like some cosmic high school jazz band from space with the chops of seasoned players. The boys kick the beats in over the top and work the melody into infinity. And with the sound of a guitar cord unplugging from a reverb-laden amplifier, the song dissappears into the clapping of a small room of people. And then it's over. It's that kind of jumping from one sort of sound space to another space that makes this album unique. They use the song within a song thing really well, like the Beatles used to do in their psychedelic heyday or the Beastie Boys on Paul's Boutique and Check Your Head. It's like some surreal dream where you each new room you walk into presents an entirely new space, vibe, and markup. Each song travels through at least a couple of rooms. It should also be mentioned that these songs rock. A thumping, intelligent, tribal pounding goes on here. You should put this music on through the biggest speakers you own and turn up the bass level. And the volume. Corey Glover from Living Colour once said "Thoughts from the back of your head shift to the front of your head, because of the vibrations..." The same principle applies here in the best way. If you're going nomadic with the MP3 player, bring the big, over the ear headphones with bass-heavy capabilities. - Spacelab |
1XLP/Out Of Print