This is familiar. It sounds quite a bit like Atlanta, Georgia's Omni. But then there are an awful lot of bands that sound rather like Omni nowadays. It also sounds a bit like Devo at their jerkiest. And that band got pretty jerky. Or Wire, or Beefheart, or Pylon, or Gang of Four or Television or Pere Ubu. So that's probably enough to tell you that this is a rather angular record.
And not one that demands that you like it. It's like the awkward, uncomfortable person in the room that everyone notices but is too polite to comment on. Lithics hail from Portland, Oregon but seem as if they belong in America's Industrial former heartland. Akron or Cleveland. so shaped by a jarring, abrasive landscape this record sounds. But just as Eraserhead, Uncontrollable Urge or The Modern Dance were strangely alluring, so is Mating Surfaces, the band's debut mini-album.
Just six songs long, and probably not one your mother would like, it's nevertheless a notable record. Taking sounds and shrieks that may all have been made before in some shape and form but twisting them sufficiently cleverly that it feels like something new. Tonight we're going to party like it's 1978, and Lithics are the house band!
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