This review has two different readerships – those who have witnessed a Lip Critic gig and those who have not. Because the bombastic New Yorkers’ deranged, bludgeoning live performances rearrange the atoms in your auditory cortex, and you might just as well try to bottle sunlight as capture their monumental sound and presence on record.
So if you have caught them live – perhaps when they blew the roof off the Louisiana in Bristol on a rainy Monday night – it’s important to understand that Hex Dealer is not and could never be a faithful reproduction of the experience. With that in mind, and judging the album on its own merits, it’s a relief that it is still something formidable. With two drummers, it’s no surprise that every punch Lip Critic throw lands in an exercise of raw percussive power, but the dynamic between Danny Eberle and Ilan Natter is not a particularly complex one on record. ‘In The Wawa’ excepted, there are few moments when the two complement each other rather than doubling down on the same thrashing beats; the real complexity is reserved for the samplers operated by Bret Kaser and Connor Kleitz.
The pair don’t tend to reach for gimmicky sound design, it’s mostly just blunt force and it is deeply refreshing that the synths work for the music rather than against it as is so often the case when heavier music reaches beyond its traditional instrument rack. Distorted 808s shudder the speakers on opener ‘It’s The Magic’, opening the floodgates for shockwave after shockwave of abrasive bass across 11 more songs which are progressively an ear fatigue endurance test unless you’re not bang up for it.
But if you are, what a treat – Lip Critic move through frantic, jarring hardcore on ‘Love Will Redeem You’, chaotic Death Grips-goes-punk on ‘I’m Alive’ and meaty chest-beating NYC beatdowns on the opening track. The anger drops on ‘Spirit Bomber’, which feels like a breather when listening through the album from front to back but would be a sucker punch if you went straight to it, and with the playful post punk of ‘Milky Max’. These tracks hold up just as well as their frenetic companions and point to an ability for nuance which it would be interesting to hear more of.
Hex Dealer is a sonic onslaught which at times threatens to overwhelm, but is always a refreshing reminder that there is life beyond guitars when it comes to muscular riot-starting punk. Oh, and see them live if you can – you won’t forget it in a hurry.
Words by Joe Ponting
Lip Critic official