LS4LM - Courtesy of their Facebook
Gross Domestic Product is just around the corner, April 14 to be exact, and I thought to help promote it a little, I would feature a song from one of the bands each day-ish. I probably won’t do it everyday, thus the -ish. For more info on GDP visit the Facebook Event Page or Des Moines Music Coalition’s website
This is a little embarrassing because despite my years being in or around the scene, somehow I had never heard Love Songs For Lonely Monsters (LS4LM). I mean, I have heard of them, but we have just been ships passing in the night. If they’re playing at a show I go to, I somehow always show up too late, or have to leave too early to catch them. I also like to go and listen to albums online to get to know a band better, but alas, they don’t seem to have much available. This one song, “Inherent Trait” seems to be the only thing I can find from them.
But after listening to it, I am kicking myself. This seems if not right up my alley, then at least alley adjacent. Grimy guitars? Yup. Female Lead Singer? Sure. Starts Slow and Builds? Absolutely. Seems to take a lot of traits from Pavement and Guided By Voices? Probably. So, I’m not real sure why I haven’t gone out of my way to check them out. Now, I know it is tough to form a positive opinion on a band after just one song, we’ve all been burnt before (Looking at you, Foster the People), but I like it so far.
The song starts with a segment that is kind of reminiscent of when a rock band would play the prom on a show like 90210 and they would have one song that is slow enough to slow dance to, but doesn’t really sound like the res of their album. But it moves to different portions
“Inherent Trait” is a surprisingly long song. It builds quite a story musically and, while not sharing almost anything musically, it reminds me a bit of Green Day’s Jesus of Suburbia in that it seems to be a few different songs all kind of tacked together. There doesn’t seem to be a hard and fast verse-chorus-verse like a traditional pop song. But that isn’t a detraction, the song flows from thought to thought and segment to segment very well. At the beginning it has a kind of slow beginning, but my about the five and a half minute mark, it disintegrates into just garage rock noise that gives the whole proceeding a chaotic feel.
My only regret is that I had a hard time picking out the lyrics. While that could as much be a fault of my anatomy, I think the kind of confident mumbling on display here is very appropriate for the backing music. There are some Julianna Hatfield and even Courtney Love traits on display at times. It’s a slight hint of damsel in distress femininity but a confidence that tells you the real story. The vocals really add to the dirt and grime of the guitars.
LS4LM is proof of the beauty of events like GDP. I get to go in relatively fresh on a band and hopefully leave a fan. And based on one song, I hope LS4LM and I will have a long and beautiful friendship.
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