With Lurk billed as “Chicago’s most inventive punks” for their “whirlwind blend of proto-punk eccentricity, new wave swagger, and hardcore ferocity,” Around the Sun, the band’s debut release, is an album that promises to help us all “lean into the absurdity” of modern life.
With the aim of being as “out there” as possible whilst staying true to their punk roots, citing influences such as Ramones and The Cramps, it certainly seems as if these newcomers to the international scene have their work cut out for them. But does Around the Sun deliver on this vision?
“The old and the boring, can shake their heads,” begins the monotonous yet atmospheric album intro on ‘Chromosome’ before a short and simple “fuck ‘em” kicks the song into gear. It’s a straight up punk record alright, and the aforementioned influences are clearly heard from the start. The song builds up to its conclusion getting more and more energetic as it goes on, but at times the vocals end up being lost in the mix; in part also due to the delivery, meaning that it becomes at times difficult to understand what exactly the band are angry about. Fortunately, this does not proceed too far into the record, with the second track ‘Pressure Points’ delivering a solid and interesting vocal delivery reminiscent of the old punk scene from several decades ago. At times, it’s almost too reminiscent.
‘Crack A Smile’, the album’s lead single, continues along this road, beginning with a riff that is very almost The Undertones’ ‘Teenage Kicks’. It’s certainly fun music, and it rocks, but if we go back to the band’s supposed mission statement, is it particularly inventive or “out there”? Not really. ‘See-Thru’ admittedly brings about some element of stylistic change, opening up as what sounds like a hardcore song inspired by the likes of Gallows, before a very Billy Talent-esque chorus employing higher pitched broken chords on guitar.
‘Bermuda’ and ‘Sterilizer’, already halfway through the album, are the first songs that begin to sound anything as weird as the album’s synopsis claims it is; just when a listener could be beginning to conclude that Around the Sun offers little other than a combination of sounds other bands had already tried.
Around the Sun is by no means a bad record; yet, after such grandiose promises in the band’s foreword, one would expect a bit more than a simple punk album. It is possible to pay homage to your influences without trying to sound exactly like them, and that’s a trick that Lurk seem to have missed with this album. For a lot of the time, it sounds like any major punk songwriter revisited their earlier work but without offering any new takes on it. It’s fun, and it’s energetic, but it’s certainly not innovative, inventive, or absurd at all. Not by a long shot.