Brutal Honesty: White Lung’s Deep Fantasy
White Lung – Deep Fantasy
Domino Records (2014)
By T. Monte
If you cook ramen on the stove-top, that’s just enough time to run Deep Fantasy once through; 22 minutes and some change. Well-captured with a clean recording, ten songs are crammed with in-your-face vocals backed to stiletto guitar riffs and a pounding, relentless beat.
On this, the Vancouver, B.C. band’s third album, the guitar and drum techniques rely heavily upon repetition, allowing the focus and attention to rest squarely on the shoulders of singer Mish Way’s uninhibited voice. The background is not completely perfunctory, however, as shown in “Wrong Star” and “In Your Home,” while Way really shines in “Drown With The Monster” and “I Believe You.” All pieces of White Lung are on the same wavelength, and their fluidity is apparent in the album’s cohesion.
The meat of the matter, Way’s lyrics, overflow with topics that, generally speaking, remain mum in mass media: dominance, violation, gender roles, and, not so overtly, sex. Way tackles some difficult yet everyday issues, and, while she may not be the next feminist savior, she is certainly not shy about confronting the problems at hand. The brutal honesty in Deep Fantasy breaks the scoreboard. – (6/10)
White Lung play at Chop Suey in Seattle on December 4.