Originally hailing from Kansas, Brooklyn's Blood on the Wall and their 2005 breakthrough album Awesomer are the stuff Horatio Alger dime novels are made on. The band grew up on the hallowed early-90s American indie/alternative/college rock boom, and a decade or two later, they pulled themselves up by the bootstraps to throw the Pixies, Pavement, Sebadoh, Sonic Youth, and all the rest into one messy blender. Fearing accusations of cheap mimicry, many bands with an equal admiration for this period over-think their music, becoming paralyzed by a tendency to tip-toe around the aesthetic. In contrast, Blood on the Wall don't try to hide the fact that they're trying to write another "Gigantic", so they often succeed.
They do forget, though, to wipe away the elbow grease: Awesomer, while impressive, never sounded anything close to effortless. If Blood on the Wall are considered some sort of indie revivalists, they're rebuilding the genre Jason Bourne-style, mostly with fractured bits of nostalgia, and the frustration from this less-than-total recall is apparent in every chorus where a scream takes the place of a catchy hook. On Liferz, they use even less finesse. Here, the blender setting's switched from "medium" to "high," making the constituents harder to pick out. Whereas Awesomer made some effort to match up the puzzle pieces, Liferz readily uses force to make the pieces fit.
The opening one-two punch of "Hibernation" and "The Ditch" brutally lays down this law. In a tale of the tape, Liferz's brutish introductory salvo may not measure up to Awesomer's craftier "Stoner Jam"/"Reunite on Ice" combo, but these newer songs wield far greater muscle. Siblings Courtney and Brad Shanks continue to rank as one of the best male/female vocal tag teams in the business, unselfishly spreading the wealth and appropriating songs best suited to their tics. While both can spew bile at the drop of a power chord, Courtney grows into a more mature big sister role on the hazy ballad "Lightning Song", and even on the grimy power pop number "Rize" she holds back her screams to do her surprisingly expressive, coherent lyrics justice. Of course, brother Brad pokes holes in any lingering sentimentality, using his indoor voice sparingly and hamming it up like a class clown. Whether pining for the next heroine hit in "Junkee... Julieee..." or playing the slapstick victim of blooper anthem "Acid Fight" ("There's something in my face!"), Brad never shies away from sacrificing tonality for character acting.
Though it lacks some of Awesomer's scintillating highlights, Liferz unequivocally proves that Blood on the Wall may slice and dice the holy scripture of 90s indie rock, but in a way that's more orthodox than heresy. Instead of, say, adding a keyboardist or lavishing their music with effects pedals or studio tricks, Blood on the Wall stick to their guns, laughing in the faces of the indie gods by blasting another faux-Pixies song dangerously into the red. Excuse them for being irreverent: They're just punking their touchstones the same way those bands did to their own 20 years ago.
