The Lawrence Arms are BACK! After 6 years, following up their 2014 release Metropole they are coming back stronger than ever with their newest LP Skeleton Coast. The album has been preceded by a podcast aptly titled Road to the Skeleton Coast diving into vocalist/bassist Brendan Kelly’s entire discography leading up to this new release.
In terms of musicianship, The Lawrence Arms have always been a very tight band and this album proves they still got it even after their break. On past albums starting with Oh, Calcutta Chris & Brendan started trading off vocal duties on each other’s songs or sharing verses rather than having their own dedicated track. This LP finds them going back to form with each vocalist on their own respective tracks.
The album opens with Quiet Storm, guitarist/vocalist Chris McCaughan starts off as fairly somber and introspective but picks up the pace within the first verse. The band comes in with a bang and keep you hooked until the end of its 2:07 run. Sonically, this song feels fairly uplifting but once you listen to the lyrics upon multiple playthroughs you find it’s anything but. Quiet Storm sets the tone for an album that is thematically dark and very reflective of the times we currently find ourselves in today.
Next up we have PTA, a Brendan track that pulls no punches. It’s fast, hits hard and catches you with its abrasive lyrics and harsh imagery. This song as stated by Brendan is about finding love where you find it, losing love where it drops off whether it be friendships or family. This song was inspired by the film Planes, Trains and Automobiles (PTA)
The album cruises right along painting a vivid picture of the Skeleton Coast filled with stray dogs, wild foxes, whales & other scavenger animals on this desolate beach shore/outpost. Scattered throughout the ends of a handful of tracks you’ll hear various cries and howls that in a way, call back to the album art. It’s a shipwreck that slightly resembles a whale carcass. Amidst the wreck you see trash, debris, TLA logo hidden in there as well as two scrawny foxes. I like to think that one of the foxes is calling to the other within this album.
One of the more harder hitting Brendan tracks at the end of Side A that stood out to me is (The) Demon. Lyrically it’s about looking at yourself and seeing that the ugliness inside, the darkness that you may not want to face but once you say it out loud and it’s out there and you can’t take it back. Brendan’s repeating lyric “I am the demon” over and over as it grows softer almost works an affirmation, welcoming that darkness, embracing it and maybe even making peace with that part of himself.
The final track is titled Coyote Crown. For me, this ties everything together. As mentioned previously this album chronicles the turmoil, we are living in. “I wear a coyote crown I watched the world burn down”. With everything that’s happened this year, it certainly feels as if the world is burning. This song feels melancholy as if you’re looking back trying to remember fonder times when things weren’t as crazy as they are now. This track’s outro has a fantastic guitar solo that swells and becomes more layered as the ending fades out. It’s almost as if all the cries heard come together for one final cry, leaving the listener with a haunting echo.
Overall, Skeleton Coast is fantastic! I feel this is just the record we needed in 2020 to really contextualize today’s landscape and the reality we are all currently facing. At least we can rock out to this while the world burns.
Buy Skeleton Coast: http://epitaph.com/artists/the-lawrence-arms/release/skeleton-coast
Road to The Skeleton Coast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3GKKkfhUKluwLdbLNxMf8E?si=QVYBeb98ReicV9ozEZWCJw
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