Music / Punk Rock
Preview: Lice, The Island
Raucous post-punkers LICE bring their first UK headline tour to an end with a homecoming show at The Island next week, but try pigeonholing them like that again and you’ll be out on your ear.
With a disdain for genre labels and a master’s degree apiece the band met at Bristol University where they honed a sound not unlike The Fall and IDLES – who the band have referred to in interviews as “like big brothers” – going through a full cycle on a broken tumble dryer. This is presumably what was referred to in a soon-to-be legendary advert on the University of Bristol’s music society Facebook page which simply read “Guitarist and drummer looking for singer willing to do and say horrible shit”.
It takes a lot to make something so artfully shambolic and so moreish-ly enjoyable, and like a Johnny Rotten-fronted Libertines the band stumble forward with snide satire delivered with a sneer by Alastair Shuttleworth.
is needed now More than ever
Back in 2018 LICE were the first band signed to IDLES frontman Joe Talbot’s label, Balley Records; the imprint pushed out It All Worked Out Great (Vol 1) and It All Worked Out Great (Vol 2), a brace of four-track mission statements with a combined runtime of less than 20 minutes. Two years later they are back with new single ‘Conveyor’ and the promise of more new material on their tour – we wait with baited breath to see just what the hell that’s going to sound like.
Lice will be performing at The Island on Thursday March 19. For tickets visit: https://www.headfirstbristol.co.uk/#date=2020-03-19&event_id=59460
Main photo by Dan Kendall
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