It’s hard not to be a little bit awed by Cleveland’s veteran underground rock juggernaut Lamont Thomas. Know America is his fifth LP in four years as Obnox (not to mention the bounty of singles he has in his catalog). Hot on the heels of January's excellent Boogalou Reed, Know America prents another stunning collection of blown-out, catchy, soulful garage rock. It is hardly a departure for Thomas, but it also shows growth – with each release Thomas’ stature and legend grows.
Lamont has said that Know America is a punk rock concept album about taking over a record station and playing his friends' records, and the album boasts an appropriately joyous, ferocious energy. The pleasure of belonging to a community where your friends are your competition, your inspiration, and your favorite musicians is one of the best things about being part of any kind of DIY music scene, and Know America crackles with that communal glee.
Under all the noise, he’s never forgotten the value of hooks or honesty: “Menocause”, the album’s first single, is a gospel-psych plea that rambles through heartache, not seeking salvation or resolution but simply honoring feelings that can’t be shoved down any longer. Contrast that with “Freaky”, a delightful, uncompromisingly sexual trashpile that sounds like the brash punk son of Funkadelic’s noisiest moments. They are part and parcel of the same human experience – desire, longing – and Thomas handles the whole range with a pop songwriter's ease.
Thomas has sat in the drummer’s seat for years for Cleveland outfits like Bassholes and This Moment in Black History, and he is also an excellent guitarist who knows when to pull out a short, searing solo and when to lean back. The constant, menacing guitar fuzz that runs throughout, occasionally swelling up and nearly overwhelming a song, is the glue welding together the disparate styles that make up Thomas’ distinct voice. He’s a singer with a lovely tone first made evident by Louder Space, his first record as Obnox in a proper studio, but he still knows how to manipulate and highlight rhythm. “Loudpack”, at the center of the track list, is a monster of a percussive noise track.
The goofiest moment on the record – “Hillbilly Intervention”, where Thomas pretends to be an ignorant bumpkin calling into the radio station to protest “Obnox and that whole n****r-ish punk movement” – is also the most serious. There is a a tendency both within rock subgenre scenes and within criticism to cast rock as by and for white people, an ahistorical erasure Thomas refuses. His blackness is, of course, part of who he is, and he refuses to compromise any aspect of himself.
If you somehow haven’t been paying attention to Thomas before this, hopefully Know America will rectify that situation. (If you get a chance to see him live, take it – he puts himself into his performance in a way that is exhilarating, exhausting and always worthwhile.) His music is alive in a way few records are these days – complex, emotional, and political in a way that resists sloganeering and cuts to the quick of what matters.
