Let's Wrestle

The bristly, guitar-strummy punk-pop of Let's Wrestle is always half a shade darker than it seems, its staccato tune-ful-ness wrapped around songs about alienation, loneliness and (sometimes) end-of-life care. The band's second full-length, recorded with Steve Albini, is called Nursing Home, and it's super fun in an antsy, abrasive, aggressively sardonic way.

Merge is offering "Dear John" as the free mp3.


The album's out May 17th.

I reviewed Let's Wrestle's first album for Dusted a year or two ago. You can read about that here if you want.

Some interesting things have been happening. Out of the blue, I got an invitation to write a one-sheet for a band on Sub Pop, and that worked out pretty well, if quickly and over Easter weekend. (I don't know what the rules are, so I'm not going to say who it was, other than that it's a kind of flying mammal...)

Also had a visit from my parents, who at 78 and 79, travelled 800 miles to see my son, Sean, in My Fair Lady. He was brilliant, by the way, my son. Everyone said so, not just his mom. He played Alfie Doolittle and had two of the show's best songs, "Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me To the Church On Time." There's a page of photos and an essay he wrote about acting at the theater's website here, if you're curious.

Also, I've been elected a library trustee in my town, which seems bizarrely responsible and adult. (I ran unopposed. No one else wanted to do it, but still...)

So pretty busy, but not necessarily on music stuff. Hope you're all well.

Let’s Wrestle…gap-tooth bravado

I liked but didn’t love the new album from Let’s Wrestle.

Here’s a bit from my Blurt review

In the Court of the Wrestling Let's is a crooked-toothed grin of an album, all cocky bravado and bristly post-punk brashness on the surface, but with an engaging undercurrent of goofy vulnerability. Feckless charm will only get you so far, but that's where Let's Wrestle takes you. They are, as Wesley Patrick Gonzales intimates in a voice that's cracked all the way through, the men you'll grow to love.

Musically, these songs are mostly founded on a spatter of eighth note guitars, a barrage of frantic drums, an occasional dropped-in, sing-along chorus. Above it all, Gonzales reigns with a half-baked charisma, letting his romantic insecurities ("I'm in Love with Destruction", "It's Not Going to Happen"), adolescent humor ("Diana's Hair") and mild psychosis ("Insects") hang out with a slip-sided smile. A couple of times, the band dips a toe into milder, more melodic waters, with the ukulele-strummed lyricism of "Only in Dreams" and the waltz-timed, doo-wop-tinged "My Schedule." Yet mostly this is about young men bashing guitars and hammering drums and making triumphant choruses out of the silly things that flit through their heads. It's fun, in a rough-hewn, mildly funny, self-aware sort of way -- like Art Brut but not as clever - mostly because it's never entirely clear how seriously you are supposed to take all this.

More

“We Are the Men You’ll Grow to Love Soon”


“I’m in a Fighting Mood”