Cadiuex 2024
Live With Yourself Or Die Trying
Four Michianders issue a series of life-affirming ultimatums and bolster their freshness with array of soul-shattering riffs.
There might be a hint of dichotomy in the title of this Detroit collective’s full-length debut, but it’s easy to ignore the choice formulated here even before the foursome’s songs emerge from one’s speakers with an all-encompassing force – simply because it’s easy to assume, erroneously so, that “Live With Yourself Or Die Trying” is a live album. The eleven pieces on offer effortlessly manage to pack a punch many an ensemble achieve only outside of studio walls, and the players – who’ve been around for just a few years and stabilized the current line-up rather recently – escape the deceptive duality by simply doing the best they can. And what the quartet do best should boil down to arresting tunes and riveting arrangements where heaviness and nuance conspire to deliver perfection.
Otherwise, why start the record with the infectious groove of the provocatively called “You’re Feeling Incorrectly” and rearrange the listener’s mood right off the bat? As Benjamin Kay’s jagged guitar riffs lock in with Tony Muggs’ bass and Matt Maniaci’s drums, which build nervous momentum for about a minute until Chris Tomko’s vocals smooth the cut’s edge via sparsely screamed phrases, strands of delicious delirium set in. Set in and get deeper, so that the punky filigree of “Under Your Skin” could break this mostly instrumental mold to jive around a rockabilly-based beat and shift the tempo like there’s no tomorrow. Still, the relatively unhurried, yet immensely tense, “Always Watching” ups paranoia via robust bluesy passages and dynamic splashes outlining each part in impressive detail and getting rid of it all for the twangy “I Quit” to rock ‘n’ roll without a care and “Screens” to restore the hard-veneered initial anxiety.
But then, “Be Brave” allows the audience to relax and bask in jazzy harmonies that reign supreme in the space between voices and strings preparing the ground for the wondrously “Overtime” which needs no words to go for histrionic heroics in terms of both structure and performative prowess the four riders of doom demonstrate in spades. And if “Rubato” careens towards zeppelinisms, the homage leanings work quite well here, especially given how lush is the balladry of “Erode” which follows it. However, while “Off My Balance” roars, raves and rages, “Get High And Kill It” this number segues into will turn anger into an anthemic, albeit equally off-the-leash, chorus calling the folks to get together.
And this, again, is easy, with “Live With Yourself Or Die Trying” showing the way there.
*****
