When friends
Rachel Birke
and
Juan Velasquez
came together in 2017 to form their new band
Lunch Lady
, they took with them only the best parts of their former respective D.I.Y. punk bands
Heller Keller
Abe Vigoda
. With their new project, they translated the youthful energy shared by both of their earlier acts into something more dreamy than spiky, relying on lyrical power rather than speedy tempos and the force of sheer volume.
's debut album,
Angel
, is inarguably punk, but the songwriting duo softens every edge with nostalgia and a haze of mystery. The album opens with its titular track, composed of a chorus-drenched bass line, jagged guitar lines, and jittery post-punk rhythms. Rather than deferring to a strict re-creation of post-punk, the song takes several unexpected shifts in mood, landing in a territory somewhere between
Pylon
and the
Chromatics
. These quick shifts happen on much of the album as its 12 songs speed by. "Snakes" transitions from a bumpy drum figure in its first half into the same kind of distant otherworldliness that marked the best of
Sonic Youth
's later albums as the song unfurls.
Birke
's lyrics follow blurry narratives about love, memory, and revenge, and
Velasquez
's guitar playing swings between sharp precision leads and textural experimentation.
pulls an even more jarring switch-up with "Preacher Man," a drum-less country dirge near the end of the album that swirls with watery organ lines and murmured lyrics painting a demented picture of betrayal and violence in an imagined Wild West. The quick turns of
are engaging if sometimes disorienting. The album feels more like a post-punk dream diary than a declarative statement, making just enough space for the listener's mind to wander before snapping them back into reality with the next abrupt shift. ~ Fred Thomas