The Seattle-based group Lux is made up of David Chandler and Leah Rosen. Their debut album, We Are Not The Same, is set to hit stores in early April 2012. The disc itself is heavily influenced by some of the biggest names of the indie and underground music era (think The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, etc.), and it shows. The entire thing was created, mixed, and recorded by Chandler and Rosen, as they traded off vocals, instruments and effects between tracks.
“Coroner’s Office” kicks the record off with a really chilled out vibe; nothing to complain about, but nothing that really stood out either. The same goes for the following tracks “Out Of Love” and “The Window.” The fourth cut, “Valerie, They’ll Never Understand” was what really gets it going. The song has a great mix of old and new sounds; with that classic dreariness they knew and loved in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and a slightly more aggressive guitar.
Shortly after comes the standout track of the record, “X.” The drum programming mixed with the excessive grain on the guitars for one heavy song. It also contains the best riffs of the entire album. All those good feelings were quickly thrown away though with “Cerebellar Ataxia.” It has some slight melody to it, but for the most part, I couldn’t tell if I was getting a busy phone line signal or I was having trouble connecting to dial-up.
It gets better though, as we go from “Candy Lux,” a song that sounds like it was meant for the Adventureland soundtrack, to the awesome electronic sounds in “1000 Airwaves.” “Blackout” was a suspenseful two-minute buildup to a hidden track that closes out really well. A lot of this album sounded like it came from the ‘80s, but did a great job of mixing those sounds with more modern ones.
In A Word: Flashback
