Once upon a time there were two friends called Olivia and Avsha and they formed a band. Look at them, they formed a band. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia they were surrounded by a hotbed of alternative American rock, post-punk and new wave from the past 45 years, so, no pressure guys.
Fortunately they seem to find firing off wonky lo-fi pop nuggets as easy as putting on a pair of Converse sneakers.
The highest complement that can be paid to this, their debut LP following on from three amazing EPs, is that it is easily the most diverse record you will hear this year. You will go into each track wondering what it will sound like. If you’ve never heard Lowertown before, once you have gotten past track three, you’ll stop second guessing yourself.
‘My Friends’ blasts through the speakers like it’s 1977 in New York City and Chrissie Hynde is fronting Television. It’s a stunning slap in the face that you don’t expect from Lowertown if you’ve listened to The Gaping Mouth EP (for example) and it sounds fucking incredible, urgent, angry, young and fresh, as if this kind of music has never been played before.
‘Antibiotics’ may have sounded a little out of place stood alone as a single, but as an immediate comedown from the opener it works beautifully. If ‘My Friends‘ was the night in CBGBs then, ‘Antibiotics’ is the next morning with a hangover that would floor a rhinoceros, lying on a sofa in the Chelsea Hotel.
‘Bucktooth’ now sounds like a stroll around Greenwich Village, hanging in Washington Square Park with protestors against the Second Amendment.
‘No Way‘ has the swagger and attitude, subtly distorted vocals and rapid guitar licks of early Strokes if they came from the more abstract angle of The Velvet Underground.
‘At The End‘ is a HUGE curve ball. Avsha takes lead vocals and comes over like 90’s alt rock. This band is so brilliantly eclectic and random it’s impossible to pin them down. Towards the end it goes Avant Garde and insane.
Then they drop a fucking waltz in two tracks from the end. ‘Waltz in Ab‘ is a spin around the piano with what sounds like a Moog adding vibrations that will make your head explode if it hadn’t already, with Olivia’s laconic delivery that you can imagine being provided lying on a bed, her head hanging off the end that she is imagining is draped over someone’s arm as she is danced around a ballroom.
Final track, ‘It’s Easy For Me‘ isn’t a million miles away from ‘Blackbird’ by a certain Liverpudlian band and is a beautifully gentle closer.
There is something in the water wherever two childhood friends, one male, one female, combine. They create the most exciting and eclectic music, never settling in one genre, bouncing around a million ideas. It’s genuinely thrilling to be able to see and hear. It helps that’s they are a visceral, cerebral experience live too, hopefully they make it across the pond to play this to us.
I’m not going to lie, I love this.
