Reviewed by: Nicholas Bramanti
Score: 6/10
Lithuania is a band on Lame-O Records (Modern Baseball, The Hundred Acre Woods) that brings influence from across the broad spectrum of alternative music and throws it into a blender. They’re fronted by Eric Slick of Dr. Dog and the duo is rounded out with Dom Angelella of Dragon King. The album kicks off with the short punk track ‘God in Two Persons’ and showcases their singer’s voice well, which is the most interesting part of the album. His voice at times scratches and howls and at others is smooth and flowing, fitting nicely into the pocket that’s been carved out for him. There isn’t a lot happening on the album that hasn’t been done before, but they figured their sound out and fit into it well. The second track is far and away the best, ‘2009’ is catchy and melodic, reminiscent of early Weezer with lots of feedback, distortion and sweet, poppy choruses.
The record moves swiftly from song to song, never staying too long on one idea lest we become unreasonably sad. Thematically, this is like many other alt rock albums before it, focusing on where they belong in the world and what meaning if any their lives have. When things slow down, the album loses a lot of its interest (like on tracks 4 and 5) as they lose any originality their sound had going and blend quickly into the overwhelming number of indie rock bands out there and they don’t do that sound particularly well. Overall, this is a decent alternative punk album that seemed to run out of ideas too quickly and lean on tropes a bit too heavily.
Fave Tracks: 2, 9, 6
FCC: Clean
RIYL: Weezer, Cloud Nothings, Japanther
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