The result is a sound in constant tension, with heaviness and lightness competing to be the lasting impression. However, the two appear intrinsically linked, just as there can be no dark without light or hope without despair. Instead, there’s a constant, never-ending cycle, a push and pull between sludgy and soaring where neither can ever triumph. And with it an interesting, nuanced atmosphere that refuses to surrender to convention.

We will have to wait for the record, which is due for release later this year, but in anticipation, Lord Jesus have released their debut single. Titled ‘Wait’, the song establishes the band’s aesthetic perfectly, pop hooks plunged into a dark pool of reverb, almost crushed beneath the weight pressing down from above. The band cite everything from Low to Fugazi as influences, and it’s not hard to see why. Floaty, dreamy vocals ride updrafts between storms of dense fuzz, guitar and percussion landing with real weight.

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As the title suggests, this is a record concerned with the empty promises of the contemporary existence, where the American Dream has been found out as no more than a compelling sales scam. Ruddick’s protagonists occupy a world where the foretold joys of love, intimacy, prosperity and religious salvation never come to pass, every inhabitant haunted by the lives they could have led, holding their stillborn dreams and refusing to let go.

Today we have the pleasure of unveiling the first single from the album. With a bleak yet textured tone, ‘Gossip Magazines’ is suitably morose, the reverb-heavy guitars and spacey synths strung along by the insistent percussion. There’s a sense of inevitability to the track’s motion that lends an existential edge, because for all of the haze and float of instrumentation the drums drag the song forward toward its fatal conclusion, and no amount of invention or protest can halt the slide.

Cos she read gossip magazines
and she ran barefoot in the street
with the Bible in one open hand
and a holy burning

So why are you sorry?

False Paradise will be released on June 15th on Holiday Breath Records.

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Rudick and co. are back with a brand new 7″ single, ‘Cheap Beer’, to be released on the cassette and vinyl-only label, Holiday Breath records. Speaking about the song, they explain:

“[The track is a] love/hate song dedicated to frontman and principal songwriter, [Rudick’s] hometown of Rainier, Washington. The song laments the impending realities of our mortalities, juxtaposed against the backdrop of a redneck small town in the pacific northwest.”

The song opens with slow piano but soon develops into a half-paced indie rock number, Rudick’s distinctive vocals conveying his unique blend of sincerity and cynicism. As such, ‘Cheap Beer’ is bathed in a kind of resigned sadness, born of a long-held struggle between understanding the world as tragic and trying to find beauty or at least empathy within its futile grind.

“I could try to comprehend
everyday when it begins
or how my last days here will end
while my grandma’s ashes rest

in some urn I’ve never seen
covered in old magazines
in some town where old men drink
cheap beer while they go fishing”

If that doesn’t sound good enough, the single is backed up with a b-side cover of Low’s ‘Murderer’, which the band describe as ‘brutal’.

‘Cheap Beer’ is out on the 17th February via Holiday Breath Records and you can pre-order it now from the Young Elk Bandcamp page, including on vinyl.

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