Ladyhawk
Shots
Jagjaguwar
By Doug Wallen
Fans of the Constantines and the late, great Silkworm will find a godsend in Ladyhawk, a somewhat slept-on Canadian quartet signed to Jagjaguwar. Specializing in the same breed of flannelled indie-rock swagger steeped proudly in Springsteen and Neil Young records, Ladyhawk feels inescapably ’90s and yet remarkably pure. It’s like listening to a decade of male frustration through a Brita filter.
Recorded fairly quickly in a gutted farmhouse, Shots is the tankard-sloshing follow-up to Ladyhawk’s self-titled 2006 debut. It opens with the exquisitely titled “I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying,” on which fluffy keyboards and a resounding hook collide in a storm of angst. “S.T.H.D.” is more ragged and raging, all muddy distortion and bitter lyrics.
But it’s on “Fear” that the band really hits its stride. Namely, it’s hard not to be floored by this deceptively simple stanza: ‘But I just wanna feel something other than fear / I don’t wanna go back but I can’t stay here / And I just wanna taste something other than tears / I don’t wanna go home but I can’t stay here anymore now.’ Inverting a common ‘last call’ cry, it’s a barroom singalong smuggling a brutally honest plea from someone at the tattered end of his rope.
The album doesn’t get any less wounded or vivid from there, whether it’s the dirge-y darkness of “Corpse Paint,” the searing guitar and sweet backup vocals of “Night You’re Beautiful,” or the nakedly emotional “(I’ll Be Your) Ashtray,” which borrows and refits the immortal line ‘You just keep me hanging on.’
As if Shots wasn’t ballsy enough, it closes with a 10-minute tune, “Ghost Blues.” It’s yet another seismic catharsis and descent into shambles for Ladyhawk, a band that combines testosterone and vulnerability better than any since those cited at the start of this review.
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