Lithium Zion
There’s an inherent flaw in the perennially alternating “rock is back”
and “rock is dead” arguments: they are based on the idea that rock
music is a logic-based choice a person consciously chooses to make.
Contrary to the critics who are looking to suss out cultural trends and
movements, the decision to play loud, distorted, unabashed
guitar-rock isn’t a strategic move but a higher calling (or curse,
depending on one’s point of view). Some might say the pursuit of
rocking out via deafening amplifiers, crusty drums and a
beer-battered PA is a spiritual one, an affliction that either strikes or
doesn’t. Few groups today embody this sentiment like Melbourne’s
aptly-named Deaf Wish.
They’re more likely to ask a fellow musician what they do for their
“real” job (for one, guitarist Jensen Tjhung works as a builder) than
talk shop about publicists, ticket counts and online promotions.
They’re a grisly rock group and they’ve already signed to Sub Pop,
which is to say they’ve already succeeded beyond their wildest
dreams, so anything that comes after (performing in strange new
cities, meeting like-minded souls, maybe even selling a t-shirt or two)
is a bonus. And if they come to your town, you would be wise to clear
your calendar.
Lithium Zion is their fifth full-length album (and second for Sub Pop
following 2015’s Pain), and, while it’s a rare case that a group’s fifth
album is their best, it may in fact be Deaf Wish’s finest. Their previous
albums were recorded in makeshift studios – a wise choice for
capturing the hazardous riffing, chemically-stained vocals and fiery
rhythms conjured by a group such as this – but this step toward a
slightly more professional sound only enhances their power. The
record opens with “Easy”, a languid rocker in the rich Australian
tradition of groups like X and The Scientists. From there it’s onto
“FFS”, a moody downhill rocker sung by guitarist Sarah Hardiman
that confirms Deaf Wish’s relation to fellow Sub Pop employees like
feedtime and Hot Snakes. “The Rat Is Back” is tense and epic;
“Hitachi Jackhammer” pays a brief and noisy tribute to Hitachi’s
second most notable device (you’d be forgiven for assuming this song
is about vibrators). Lithium Zion is a veritable buffet of garage-punk
energy, post-punk pathos, sardonic wit and the fearlessness that
comes with Aussie rock, a natural consequence for anyone living on a
continent teeming with grapefruit-sized spiders and man-eating
mosquito swarms.
As has always been the case, the whole group shares vocal duties,
even drummer Daniel Twomey (you know the band is slightly
unhinged if they’re letting the drummer sing). Hardiman and Tjhung
are as ragged and hairy as ever, chugging along as though krautrock
was trying to speed past the late ‘70s but got caught in the sticky
grasp of punk. Such is the way of Deaf Wish, a group destined to write
songs that are simultaneously stupid and sublime, vulnerable and
ferocious, and play them with the unbridled intensity they demand.
Anyone serving a life sentence to rock will surely concur.
