The Linda Lindas grew up inside a musical globule; father of two members (uncle of one), Carlos de la Garza, had most notably – most notably to the girl rock demographic – produced for Paramore.
Paramore is, unsurprisingly, a hefty influence on The Lindas. Hayley Williams has been a friend of the band since before the band was a band. The Lindas have often written and released songs that appear like gifts to Williams; I Could Be Wrong, from new album Gotta Get Out, exemplifies with the textbook vocal flares (from the belly, then yelled), anxiety and anthemically feverous chorus that exists to satisfy any emo itch even the non-emos might have.
And on Closer, Hayley Williams arrives to perform some guest vocals, some mental health crises. Anxieties are passed like intergenerational hand-me-downs, and The Lindas’ 2000s emo pop adulation is celebrated once more.
But The Lindas haven’t come of age to revert to fandom. Gotta Get Out is happy to salute the occasional hero – even at its softest, it shows love for “traditional” riot grrrl, and the band chooses the odd riff that resembles first wave punk such as The Dils – but the album itself is not happy. The Linda Lindas’ third album shuns the group’s luckiness, its blessings, doesn’t just have fun with music, and prospers through its best moments being either its most politically-charged or musically brutal.
The band has been socially-aware since Growing Up, since the song Racist, Sexist Boy spotlit the contemporary societal pests burgeoned by Trump’s okaying of locker room jargon in realer settings. Carlos de la Garza was staunchly encouraging, not a different kind of Joe Jackson who demands his kids do his political bidding, but an approver of his kids and their cousin and friend fighting the kind of fight they felt necessary.
If any cues are taken from Hayley Williams, that’d be Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party’s greater stare at modern ills, social and political, which itself read like an artist realising their duty where surveying serious issues is concerned – ya hear that, Ed Sheeran? That’s because The Linda Lindas are visibly pissed at Trump’s America.
The bond of political consciousness and musical exploration arrives in the form of grungy sludge metal song Blood on Our Hands, on which bassist Eloise Wong’s heaving voice is weaponised in a well-rounded takedown of Trump’s America. She sings with gravel, mud and twigs in her throat, for the good of lyrical highs that really are lyrical highs – “I don’t care about your wealth, I don’t care about your tax breaks / nothing big or beautiful about a fascist state”.
She uses her nasty-ass voice in a dark grasping of self-perception on Break, which likes a Black Flag guise until its modernised guitar licks lack any Ginn-ism. It’s even better than Blood on Our Hands; a psychotically-moshing hardcore punk song with authentic, guttural guitars and thrashing rhythms.
And finally, Eloise’s burning voice is utilised for the sake of self-help on Okay; a prosperous, happy hippy punk song, Andrew W.K.-like in its guidance, but Clash-like in its classic punk power chord riffs.
Maybe they aren’t quite Kafka-ing into a political hardcore band – this is where I shoehorn Nothing Left’s pollution-centric theme into the review to prove there is more political stuff – but I, personally, really dig those moments of change. I don’t want the young to totally lose their innocence and turn miserable at the foul realisations of early adulthood, but the Lindas telling us about these realisations is what will validate the band as an essential modern punk band, the furthest thing from a nepo act or cloying family band.
The band is close to that point already, but I want more of Blood on Our Hands and more of Break, less tired synth-looping and new wave-dance (title track / High Horse), more mesmerically crunching guitar and hurtling vocals, fewer breezing, I-V-ii-IV chord progressions (Burning Out).
But they are detaching themselves more and more from the carefree warmth of a safe childhood – don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that they had that – and opening themselves up more and more to pointing musical missiles at greedy capitalists and warmongers. It’s a nasty world that leads to a pressured undertaking, but it beats curfews, am I right?
Best tracks – Blood on Our Hands – Break – I Could Be Wrong – Okay.
Rating – 6.5 out of 10
