GenturZine

Tracklist

1. Spit Shining Shit
2. The Slowest Drink at the Saddest Bar on the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City
3. Them Angels Been Talkin'
4. Demons
5. The Redness in the West

With Buttsweat and Tears -- surprisingly the group's first 7" in all its ten years -- the Lawrence Arms pick up right where they left off on 2006's very excellent Oh! Calcutta! At only four songs in length (a fifth song, "Demons," is only available via the digital release and worth checking out), you're left wishing it was a full-length album, since just as you're getting reacquainted with the band, it's all over. Such is the curse of the 7". Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan mostly split the lead during this set, and each track is full of the same grit-covered, rowdy proclamations they both do so well. There's a lot of personal reflection and desire to escape (both town and the past), but somehow the guys never seem surrendered to defeat. "The Slowest Drink at the Saddest Bar on the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City" is a spirited tale of loneliness with an awesome title, and "Them Angels Been Talkin'" has Kelly leading the punk rock charge with guitars blazing. The last song, the McCaughan-led "The Redness in the West," start outs with a modest country twang, featuring little more than vocals over barely heard guitar, before the rest of the band joins in to ensure that the EP finishes off on a high note of drunken punk camaraderie. The Larry Arms don't hold back at all, making Buttsweat and Tears solid from beginning to end and a worthy addition to their already strong arsenal. ~ Corey Apar, Rovi

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!

Tracklist

1. The Devil's Takin' Names
2. Cut it Up
3. Great Lakes / Great Escapes
4. Recovering the Opposable Thumb
5. Beyond the Embarrassing Style
6. Are You There Margaret? It's Me, God.
7. Jumping the Shark
8. Lose Your Illusion 1
9. Requiem Revisited
10. Key to the City
11. Old Dogs Never Die
12. Like a Record Player" / "Warped Summer Extravaganza (Major Excellent)

Oh! Calcutta! is the fifth studio album from some of Chicago's finest punk rockers, the Lawrence Arms. Always ones for consistency, the album falls easily into the ranks of other releases from the raucous trio; it's a blazing dose of gritty, energetic punk rock with enough attitude to spare through Chris and Brendan's trademark duel vocal assault, which actually trades off more within each song this time than each having their own tracks. Brash, desperate emotion spills over each song with the raw air of being on the verge of breakdown, but it's that same passion that manages to hold everything together seamlessly song after song. Though the album mostly contains these frenzied up-and-down rockers, each incendiary song distinguishes itself through rousing choruses and empowered lyrics that speak of leaving the past -- whether good or bad -- behind. The stylish "The Devil's Takin' Names" contains sweetly pathetic lines like "You've got those moves and those eyes/I've got these shakes and bad breath." And though one might cringe at the opening Dead or Alive-esque sentiments of "Like a Record Player" ("I'm like a record player/I keep going round"), the song soon launches into a sentimental ode to friendship and the road. Don't forget to also stick around for the folksy hidden track soon after the last song's end for a little insight into festivals like the Warped Tour via the Lawrence Arms. Plain and simple, Oh! Calcutta! is more of what fans of the group have come to expect from the guys. Every spin is like a freakin' party. On the one hand, it's good to see the Arms haven't lost any of the vigor that's made them so engaging over the years. On the flip side, however, the album unfortunately probably won't garner the guys any more attention than past efforts received, thus retaining their place as one of the most overlooked bands in today's punk scene. But hey, when the band and its fans seem most comfortable playing and drinking together in the sweaty dive bars across the world anyway, you can just look at it as everyone else's loss. Corey Apar, All Music Guide

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!

1. Intransit
2. Quincentuple Your Money
3. 100 Resolution
4. There's No Place Like A Stranger's Floor
5. Hey, What Time Is 'Pensacola: Wings of Gold' On Anyway?
6. Presenting: The Dancing Machine (The Robot With The Monkey Head)
7. Overheated
8. Necrotism: Decanting The Insalubrious (Cyborg Midnight) Part 7
9. A Boring Story
10. Faintly Falling Ashes
11. A Toast
12. Nebraska
13. Another Boring Story
14. Joyce Carol Oates Is A Boring Old Biddy
15. The Old Timers 2x4
16. Turnstiles / Old Mexico Way / Purple Haze / Haven Help Me

A handy 19-track compilation of B-sides, stray contributions to compilations and split EPs, live recordings, and three re-recordings rounding things out, Cocktails & Dreams is both a boon for longtime fans and a perfectly fine introduction to the Chicago pop/rockers for the uninitiated. Unlike a lot of bands, the Lawrence Arms don't treat these stray tracks as an excuse to be half-assed, goofy (although one track is titled "Joyce Carol Oates Is a Boring Old Biddy," a sentiment to which a generation of English majors nods in assent), or needlessly experimental; silly title and all, "Hey, What Time Is 'Pensacola: Wings of Gold' on, Anyway?" is a powerful, punky rocker with a soaring chorus, a well-turned lyric, and a killer primary riff. The similarly impressive "Overheated" is quite possibly the band's best song yet. "Intransit," "Turnstiles," and "The Old Timer's 2x4," are equally fine (the latter two were first heard on Ghost Stories); they're catchy indie rock songs that don't sacrifice catchy melodies for punk rock power, featuring lead singers Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan's gruff but tuneful vocals and the whole trio's admirable musical muscle. Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!

Tracklist

1. Introduction: The Ramblin' Boys of Pleasure Sing the Hobo Clown Chorus
2. The Raw and Searing Flesh
3. On With the Show
4. Drunk Mouth Kitchen Smile
5. Alert the Audience!
6. Fireflies
7. The March of the Elephants
8. Chapter 13: The Hero Appears
9. Hesitation Station
10. The Revisionist
11. The Ramblin' Boys of Pleasure
12. A Wishful Puppeteer
13. The Disaster March
14. Outro: Hobo Reprise

Though the Lawrence Arms' The Greatest Story Ever Told can't be expected to live up to its tongue-in-cheek title, the album is a surprisingly strong set of fresh pop punk that avoids the trappings and clichés of the genre. The sputtering, old-time sounding introduction makes for a unique entryway to the sparkling and grandiose (Sunny Day Real Estate-esque) "The Raw and Searing Flesh." "On with the Show" sounds like the Germs crossed with X, and "The March of the Elephants" thunders with an off-kilter, post-punk edge. With lyrics like "the swirl of smoke looks like her slender body," "Fireflies" -- one of the record's best tracks -- could almost be the Weakerthans or Waxwing, and if the Lawrence Arms followed suit with those groups, and added just a touch of country-rock to their work, they'd be astounding. The Greatest Story Ever Told is an album that will grow on you -- it gets better and better with repeated listens, and like the Queens of the Stone Age, they use multiple vocalists to great effect, insuring that things never get repetitive or boring. Though it doesn't depart as much from its peers as something like Saves the Day's remarkable In Reverie, The Greatest Story spotlights the Lawrence Arms as one of the best power punk groups of 2003, and one that, with a little more genre-bending innovation, could create a real rock and roll masterpiece. Charles Spano, All Music Guide

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!

Tracklist
01 - Porno And Snuff Films
02 - The First Eviction Notice
03 - Navigating The Windward Passage
04 - Your Gravest Words
05 - Boatless Boat Cruise (Part 1)
06 - Brick Wall Views
07 - The Corpse Of Our Motivations
08 - "I'll Take What's In The Box, Monty"
09 - Right As Rain (Part 2)
10 - 3 Am QVC Shopping Spree Hangover
11 - Abracadaver

Modern life is no picnic, and life on the road for a young band is oftentimes frustrating, tiring, and tiresome, brightened only by the occasional moments of glory and glee. So after a year of uninterrupted touring, it's no wonder that the Lawrence Arms felt little more than Apathy and Exhaustion. And why Fat Wreck Chords immediately signed the band and sent it straight into the studio, for Fat head Fat Mike has enough road experience to know that a band on the edge is sure to knock out a record of raw emotion and edgy exuberance bordering on total nihilism. Beyond the band's revved-up emotional state and got-my-second-wind exhilaration, the trio has another winning card up its sleeve -- two lead singers. Gruff bassist Clarence Darrow (aka Brendan), all raspy, too-many-cigs-and-shots gravel tones, handles the more frenetic songs, while guitarist Lehigh Acres (aka Chris) takes on the more introspective numbers, a pool of angst, vulnerability, and startled disbelief at the small cruelties the world offers up. Between them, the group covers all the emotional bases, and musical ones to boot. Crisp, clean, melodic punk that runs from punchy celebrations to moodier, steamy songs of sweet beauty. Apathy and Exhaustion may describe the trio's state, but the Lawrence Arms' debut album is sure to elicit anything but.

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!

Tracklist
1. Sixteen Hours
2. Chicago is Burning
3. Turnstyles
4. Asa Phelps is Dead
5. All the Week
6. The Old Timer's 2x4
7. Here Comes the Neighborhood
8. Light Breathing (Me and Martha Plimpton in a Fancy Elevator)
9. Ghost Stories
10. 106 South
11. Minute
12. The Last One

Ghost Stories came out less than half-a-year after the Lawrence Arms' debut, A Guided Tour of Chicago, but it's a top-to-bottom improvement over their monochromatic first album. It's not a return to singer/songwriters Brendan Kelly and Christopher "McCooch" McCaughan's earlier band, the Broadways, in terms of that group's pop-punk sound, but that group's attention to melodic detail, which had been largely absent from A Guided Tour of Chicago, returns in full here, making it a much more varied and interesting listen. Also, McMaughan steps up to the vocal mic a bit more often than before, further enriching the sound. Finally, the songwriting is simply much better this time out, with brief little post-hardcore gems like "Sixteen Hours" and the jangly, hypnotic "Minute" offsetting more expansive songs like the comic, star-struck story "Light Breathing (Me and Martha Plimpton in a Fancy Elevator)." Even better efforts were forthcoming, but Ghost Stories was a most encouraging improvement. Stewart Mason, All Music Guide

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!

1. Intro
2. An Evening of Extraordinary Circumsance
3. Kevin Costner's Casino
4. A Guided Tour Of Chicago
5. Take One Down and Pass It Around
6. Someday We're All Gonna Weigh 400 Lbs.
7. The Northside, The L&L And Any Number Of Crappy Apartments
8. Smokestacks
9. Detention
10. Uptown Free Radio
11. Eighteen Inches

The Lawrence Arms are basically a reconstituted version of mid-'90s Chicago pop-punks the Broadways, whose singer/songwriters Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan serve the same function here, backed by drummer Nick Hennessy. Unlike the Broadways, where Kelly and McCaughan shared vocal duties about evenly, Kelly takes the lion's share of the lead vocals on A Guided Tour of Chicago, spitting out his politically tinged lyrics in a harsh, sore-throat bark. Similarly, the Undertones-like melodic pop-punk of Broadways albums like Broken Star is here flattened into a more one-dimensional blast of speed and fury. The sharp, cogent lyrics of songs like "Someday We're All Gonna Weigh 400 Lbs." and the Chicago-specific "The North Side, the L&L and Any Number of Crappy Apartments" struggle against the monochromatic blur of melodies and riffs that don't change enough from song to song to keep A Guided Tour of Chicago from sounding like the band's just circling the block. -Stewart Mason, AMG

Download   Report Bad Link	If you like this album, please go and buy it to support the artist and the label. It's totally worth it!