White Lung – Paradise

A softened blow, but a blow, nevertheless...

When Annie Clark of St. Vincent champions a band, you sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen to them. It’s easy to see what drew her to Canadian punk trio White Lung: ever-shifting song structures that coil and spring in unexpected directions, hyperactive shredding à la Biffy Clyro before they got a taste for stadiums and, in singer Mish Barber-Way, a frontwoman who wields that distinctive roaring sneer that few have mastered since The Distillers ruled the roost nearly 15 years ago. But while Brody Dalle and co. called it a day after three albums, White Lung are now releasing their fourth album in six years and have their eyes resolutely fixed on the future.

‘Paradise’ sees the band fully commit to the pursuit of melody over madness, a direction that anyone who heard 2014’s ‘Deep Fantasy’ will not be surprised to hear. Commiserations to those long-time fans hankering for the odd-punk of early cuts like ‘Psychoholic’ or ‘Atlanta’, it seems that White Lung are building up their own appetite for the sweet taste of stadium. Thankfully this doesn’t come hand in hand with a loss of guitar gristle. Tracks like ‘Vegas’ and single ‘Kiss Me When I Bleed’ boast riffwork from Kenneth William so ball-bustingly intense you have to hope he’s not keen on having kids in the future. Drummer Anne-Marie Vassiliou also continues in her bid for the world title of ‘most ferocious woman behind a kit’, battering her toms into submission until you think they must need some serious trauma counselling. As far as the music goes, White Lung have kept true enough to their original sound to retain the label punk. But they have lost… something.

There’s a tonne of change noticeable on this record. The band have made a conscious effort to avoid the lo-fi fetishism that threatens to strangle innovation across the long-suffering underground punk scene, which is understandable. What is not understandable, however, is HEALTH and Deap Vally producer Lars Stalfors’ decision to go far too far in the other direction and manipulate Misha’s voice to such a degree that she might just as well have been replaced with that terrifying Japanese singing android HRP-4C (you remember her, right? The one who still haunts your dreams?) Lars might have come straight from working with Alice Glass, but filtering through and removing all individuality from a voice with such personality is a crime for which there is no excuse. It really mars the album. Unfamiliar vocals that sound more Hayley Williams than Kathleen Hannah also draw attention to the less savoury pop-punk excesses of the band. Sending ‘Below’ back via wormhole to the Kerrang! offices circa 2006 would result in a respectable number of soiled low-slung skinny jeans, as would ‘I Beg You’ and ‘Paradise’.

The annoying thing is that the songs are great! The band could pass for a gender-flipped Rise Against on the frenetic ‘Narcoleptic’, while ‘Hungry’ wonderfully echoes the grunge-pop songwriting genius of Honeyblood’s Stina Marie Claire Tweeddale. Unfortunately their laudable desire to sound like the future rather than the past seems to have backfired, leaving ‘Paradise' a crop of good ideas that wear quickly on the ears. On the plus side this overly polished sound might help convert at least a few godforsaken You Me at Six fans onto real punk (that is, if real punk will have them). On the minus side the wait for a world conquering punk act that won’t compromise their sound for sales continues.

6/10

Words: Josh Gray

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