Living Things, Habeas Corpus
Fighting guns, greed and the government with Jagger swagger and enormous hooks
Fiercely political St. Louis alt-rockers Living Things hate guns, greed and the government, and they're fighting the world with the only weapons they have: enormous hooks and a sexy, Jaggerian swagger. Their critically-adored 2005 debut, the Albini-produced Ahead Of The Lions, was closer to the unwashed garage rock of the time, perfectly matching toothy sentiments like "No solution! Just bombs below!" Follow-up Habeas Corpus is a slicker, mechanical robo-rock affair, polished to a perfect shine in the same Berlin studio where David Bowie recorded Heroes. Living Things are still just as rabble-rousing, but they've pulled an Against Me!, turning their rhetoric into the biggest, baddest pop songs possible. Zeroing in on the dread of post-market-crash America, Living Things respond with explosive, danceable indie-pop — bassist Eve Berlin calls it "our own version of soul music." Frontman Lilliam Berlin is full of crypto-ironic venom, turning dance-punk jam "Mercedes Marxist" into a bittersweet party (I want a big car! Like the kind the gangstas ride!") and drolly doomsdaying in "Post Millenial Extinction Blues" ("It ain't cliché, darling, to say you want a revolution"). Ultimately their mix of sloganeering and pop gloss makes them a sexier version of Street Sweeper Social Club — tired, broke, pissed off and dancing on the ashes.
