Refined savagery? Or savage refinement? I think the latter. Call Me Lightning are like a hungry, feral beast with a surgeon’s approach—their music rips you apart, but it’s not a hammer blow, rather the more precise violence of the scalpel. It’s always good to hear a band that doesn’t need to rely on a truckload of heavily distorted power chords in order to be compelling. Their web bio claims influences of “too much of The Minutemen, not enough of The Birthday Party, and just enough Led Zeppelin” and that seems to be pretty accurate; the Minutemen and Birthday Party influences are clearly here in the band’s minimalist tunes that have a spooky and slightly desperate and deranged air about them. This record rocks with the edge of a knife, alternating between surgical precision and mad, random stabbing.
–Eric Carlson (French Kiss, www.callmelightning.com)