Simplified & Civilized

The Electric Lungs have raised the bar impressively high in Kansas City for 2013. 'Simplified & Civilized' chugs forth with it's rockabilly stomp spitting smooth, grinding, grooves and punk rock choruses & becomes an unrelenting beast of perpetual Clash-esque strutting. It pays homage to 'Combat Rock' era Strummer but it also echoes early 90's (gasp) alternative. There are ever so subtle hints of early They Might Be Giants (before they became a novelty) & even some Jellyfish. Does anyone fucking remember Jellyfish? I even feel I should mention early Elvis Costello because there is also a nice buzzing undercurrent of dance new-wave here too...but there's also a gritty foundation that mixes the ska shake of Rancid and alterna-sneer of Presidents of the United States of America... Enough comparisons. Blargh! On with the imagery! 'Simplified & Civilized' is the exact last moment of hope before the dam broke and the music business lost all it's mojo. It's got pop music machismo in spades. The Electric Lungs churn out power pop hooks like they have a warehouse full of the surplus. The hooks are fast, playfully powerful, and blazingly unrelenting. The guitar is beautiful compressed Boss pedal distortion wonderland and the drummer may have been happily raised by a family of sharks who convinced him if he stopped drumming he would die...

I imagine he is *still* in the studio...beating the holy hell out of his kit. The true salesman is the Lung's singer...his vocals alternating between a spiraling, ska, serpentine flow and Pixies-esque screeching. He was most surely the only kid in high school to have an affair with the young and hot computer teacher & then later be expelled from art school for being 'too complicated'. Yes dear readers that is a high compliment. The whole, weirdly, too-damn-close to-perfect package is wrapped up solidly with frolicking jazz keys and driving & dark deep bass guitar. The Lungs black cauldron of wizard hooks and smooth criminal commercial angst is so expertly brewed that one wonders not IF but WHEN they'll be doing interviews from tour buses or Keith Moon'ing hotel toilets. It's commercial power pop with post-punk, alternative tendencies primed like a roaring engine to infiltrate America's youth and remind them that not so long ago you had to actually get your hands dirty and work for them sweet hooks and then like Nero...play the fiddle while the whole empire burned. 'Simplified & Civilized' hits the streets running in February. -William Chaffin@killyourtvkc.