With a new album, Ghosts, cued up for early next year, ‘Burn’ is here to tease the audience and test the waters, and personally speaking, you can consider me more than pleasantly teased, totally taunted, tested and with more than a toe in their tantalizing sonic water.
Part raucous post-punk, part proto-punkish rock and roll, all barely controlled anger and abrasive attitude (but in the best of ways), ‘Burn’ is perhaps a reminder that although the world is going down the tubes, those choirs of protest and disenfranchised resentment, the rabble-rousers and those rebels once manning the sonic barricades seem to be, to a large degree, noticeable by their absence in the modern world. (Presumably too busy doomscrolling and Netflixing.) Where are the agitators and whistleblowers, the activists and anarchists, the sonic insurgents and musical disruptors? Where indeed!
Thankfully, LiVES have loud voices, loud enough to make up for the rest of us, and over their groovy, garage-rock, fist-in-the-air, foot-on-the-monitor, punch in the chops, what-you-looking-at-mate brand of trashy, thrashy, brusque and bruising rock ‘n’ roll they set their sights on the scourge of the modern age…no, not Ed Sheeran fans, arms dealers. And, by extension, presumably, those in positions of political power who are happy to carpet-bomb their way toward a more peaceful tomorrow!
Remember when punk was the voice of dissent? Remember when rock and roll was the sound of rebellion? Remember when garage bands sounded like they were ready to tear the world down just for the hell of it? Remember when bands like The MC5 were viewed as public enemy number one? LiVES certainly do!
