I’ve achieved almost an hour’s worth of zen this a.m. many times over, all thanks to Lesibu Grand’s debut album, Triggered. The Atlanta-based indie band has somehow synthesized the energy of Doc Brown’s flux capacitor and turned it into sonic waves that swell like cresting wonders of time displacement and crash through the speakers. I’m talking spiky rhythms and post-punk stylings, surf rock meets celestial pop, and the like. It’s a cross between Blondie, the Go-Go’s and the Ramones, as well as Berlin and multiple other bands from the early days of MTV.
Cooler still, though, is that when one listens beyond the surface, the songs speak to matters of the moment, not the long ago. Freedom’s not just, as Janis sang, another word for nothing left to lose. Freedom is what our ancestors dreamt of and fought for, and yet it’s what some politicos are trying to strip away: “And to the gray boys who run the South/You still have your pens, but I still have my mouth/You use yours to rule my womb/I’ll use mine to bring you doom.” “Pull the Trigger,” on the other hand, explores the many police shootings that occur from quick-fingered over-reactions: “Standing on my lawn, on my phone/You say it’s a gun and you pull the trigger.“
“Hot Glue Gun” is another highlight. It’s not a new song, having been released a few years back, and was obviously inspired by the societal cracks that the pandemic exposed—and that remain. It widens the lens beyond the “gray boys” to delve into the mess that modern life has become, all while the band achieves rapture by channeling their inner-Blondie. To my ears, the pop sheen of “Erica” conjures the Top 40 radio of the late 1970s and early ‘80s, sounding a bit like a one-sided duet between Peaches & Debbie Harry; the only thing missing is a disco beat. The same’s true of “Emotional Disguise” and “Jennifer, My Girl”; the former digs into how we hide our emotions, while the latter ponders the desire to shut out the world.
“Heartbreak Blue,” for its part, excavates society’s divisions and one thing, for good and ill, that unites everyone: “Separation everywhere/One color here, one color there/But the only color that I feel is true/heartbreak blue, heartbreak blue.” The album closes with a twin spin of uptempo fun. “Friends With My Friends” celebrates introducing that special someone to your friends and also meeting his or her pals. “Party, Party, Party, People” honors the diversions that make a life a life.
The band consists of singer Tyler-Simone Molton and bassist John Renaud, who joined forces in 2018, as well as guitarist Brian Turner, drummer Lee Wiggins, and keyboardist Warren Ullom. Together, they’ve created a set of songs that is well worth one’s time. Like life itself, it’s fun and frolicsome one moment and serious the next, and filled with intoxicating melodies that circulate and percolate through the mind, body and soul. You’ll get your groove on, for sure, and think along the way.
The Old Grey Cat 