Powerful Punk Passion
Land of Talk's two new songs are just great. It feels loud and punk-passionate in the way that Magneta Lane accomplishes or when you hear ‘Decepticon’ start playing and you just want to dance really hard. ‘Speak to Me Bones’ is like a loud shout crying out about something desperate that is getting more and more dire as the song progresses until the rousing climax of “not every girl is a nail and you're not a hammer / what about, what about, what about right now, right now!?" utterly exposes a rather chilling vulnerability beneath the band's - and the song's - gruff exterior.
And this leads into the live Toronto version of ‘It's Okay’ which is a charming droner that expresses a laid-back angst against the injustices of time: "sometimes growing up, it can get you down". It feels like stoner rock with a percussive vein that somehow maintains your interest and makes you listen very closely, and what you hear is all the pain faced by a girl learning about how the world works. Elizabeth Powell writes and makes great music, music that speaks and cuts straight through, as the single says, to me bones.
The cover image of the EP is telling: a patch with Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones sewed into it with all the anti-capitalist weight and grace of people doing-it-themselves. Land of Talk, thank you so so much. No matter how hard it gets to survive while making and playing your music, please don't stop. Ever.