Bands

Mix the punk venom of some of the more notorious riot grrrl bands of the 90’s with the guitar noodling and tempo of UK post punk by way of John Reis and you get something pretty close to WHITE LUNG.

REVIEW of IT’S THE EVIL album:

EXCLAIM - It’s The Evil is every bit the full-length debut followers have been anticipating from White Lung. Finally, after personnel conflicts and changes, releasing three impressively searing seven-inch singles and bursting through Vancouver, BC’s weird punk scene to embark upon their first tour, they went back to the studio and successfully captured the nerve and fury that fuelled the momentum they’d found themselves riding. Singer Mish Way is the super-smart, totally confident ‘90s riot-grrrl heroine that’s so sorely missed in current music, and her vicious vocals, whether wailing in “Viva la Rat” or dryly straightforward in “Sleep Creep,” are the real foundation of the band’s breakneck, dirty punk. You can sometimes hear it all in one go, such as on standout track “Wild Failure”: the ‘80s West coast snarl, the ‘70s UK post-punk oddities, the hardcore guts and that distinct, gritty, indie ‘90s punch. White Lung pack a lot into It’s The Evil, forming something visceral and extreme that isn’t willing to relent.

CHART magazine
4/5 - Extreme environments foster extreme forms.  Vancouver’s grimy, gritty downtown east side, known in some circles as Pickton country, is an ideal climate for spawning music as ferocious and relentless as that of White Lung’s It’s The Evil debut LP.
The band are the product of East Van’s weird Emergency Room punk scene and have already parlayed an uncompromising and messy post-riot grrrl/hardcore act into three critically acclaimed EPs.
It’s The Evil sounds a bit cleaner, but the music retains its vital edges — not to mention the singular determination of a blade of grass sprouting through a sidewalk crack. These songs are crafted with the desperation of life that won’t be denied.
The album grabs you by the throat from its first beat and doesn’t let go, as tremulous slash-and-burn guitar cacophonies and a redline rhythm accompany sneering Karen O.-meets-Patti Smith vocals. The 25-minute sonic assault also offers some unexpected turns.
“Atlanta” marries an anthemic choral scream (“You explode!”) with spastic Death From Above 1979 guitars. The breakdown in “Psychoholic” owes a debt to Cypress Hill’s live, guitar-drenched version of “Riot Starter.” And Daniel Pitout’s complementary vocals on “Tale” evoke Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon-Thurston Moore dynamic, complete with a reference to wish fulfilment.  It’s The Evil shines with the furious urgency that launched the first wave of Vancouver punk 30 years ago, led by hardcore pioneers D.O.A., and which has recently resuscitated East Vancouver’s scene. Punk never died, it just waited for an extreme environment to fuel its comeback.

MRR #329
When I listen to WHITE LUNG, i want to be moving forward really fast with either a machete or baseball bat knocking shit over.  Like, i wanna be the protagonist in a skateboarding video game.  Yeah, WHITE LUNG makes me wanna kick ass in a fantasy world.  And yes, I mean to imply that they are skate punk.  Mish’s vocals are super dynamic and sound like Mike Muir if he became a really excited and pissed off game show host.  But when you get this record, be thee warned!  The recording is so hyper that it might be wise to only listen to one side in a sitting. They crammed eleven demanding tracks onto this 12”, and more than five can really wear you out.

TERMINAL BOREDOM-
Burly, searing, wonderfully atypical punk from the Venusian punk hotbed that is 2000s Vancouver. It can’t be mentioned enough; the quality per capita coming out of that place right now is incredible. White Lung had built up quite a repertoire pre-2010 with two great EPs and the A-side closer to the seminal (and Vancouver-centric) Emergency Room comp, a blissfully vicious edge to their performances, then the original (and highly highly highly inventive) guitarist left, replaced by a guy with a very similar approach - like Andy Gill playing chainsaws, Bernard Sumner joining Koro, et cetera. The approach the band has mined so successfully in the past is picked right back up without a hitch, and they’ve given us an LP’s worth of songs fitting in perfectly with their previous efforts (and just as interesting). There’s so much going on that’s just… pleasingly raw. The harmonic cacophony that the wandering bass finds with the completely unpredictable guitarwork is always given just enough room to explore, and it’s great that they are able to keep it up for 11 songs. There’s maybe one track that drags, but even then you’ve got a good 23 minutes of the Bags going to a dystopian future that is more interesting than what most bands are doing these days… Great. (NG)

BEATROUTE-
White Lung’s debut LP, It’s the Evil, has so much going for it, setting a new bar for their peers that emerged out of the Vancouver Emergency Room LP, a scene that has been on a Motown-like streak of late, with amazing records coming out left and right (see Nu Sensae’s TV Death and the Devil, Vapid’s Practically Dead and Shearing Pinx’ Weaponry for more).  These bands collectively have the rest of the world scratching their heads, wondering what is in the water out in Vancouver.  It’s the Evil absolutely adds fuel to the fire.  This devastating record is as solid as anything I’ve heard in 2010, to the point that I’ve had to re-write this section a dozen times to tone down the hyperbole, as I just can’t get over how good this LP is.  White Lung make punk music for people who love music with so many subtle influences and reference points that it makes my head hurt.  The rhythm section is so tight, the guitar parts so perfect, and Mish Way’s vocal parts so engaging, White Lung is the total package.  When you factor in the high-level of songwriting on It’s the Evil, you can find so many album standouts: “Atlanta”, “Shoot”, and my favorite “Wild Failure”, which to me sounds like THE SMITHS on meth.  Truly one of the most exciting records to come out this year.

GHOST PANDA - It’s very easy to put a band like White Lung into the Riot Grrrl camp by the often used Bikini Kill comparison with their 3-girl-to-1-boy ratio and their Pacific North-West punk leanings, but as much as this may disappoint some of you out there, White Lung does not raise the corpse of Kathleen Hanna past (or present). Instead it is a taut and muscular machine that has much more in common with The Wipers than the female fronted bands of Olympia and Portland. It still annoys me to this day when a predominantly female band is only compared to other female fronted bands when musically they are miles apart.
‘It’s The Evil’  kicks off a with ‘Viva La Rat’ which may or may not be a homage to ‘Return of The Rat’ which had the same pole position placing on The Wipers debut effort. The vocals, which are constantly urgent and half sung, half screamed really hold theses songs together as the guitars dash ahead with fits of aggressive garage-punk down strokes coupled with loose bursts of feedback and chaos. It’s particularly impressive when you can get a band like White Lung who have really clever songs like these, but do not over complicate them, instead keeping this record tight, lean and focused.
One of the standout songs is the penultimate track ‘Tale’ which brings in a male vocal during the chorus and adds another layer not yet seen on this record, marking the tone down a notch from some of the more frantic songs it is sandwiched between. They also seem to steer off into post-punk territory occasional with some discordant guitar lines over strong rhythmic bass lines and off beat drums, before dragging it all together and racing towards the finish line.
It is great too to see Deranged Records release this album, as it is just that bit different to a lot of the other bands on its roster, which has been home to some of my personal favourite hardcore records by bands such as DS-13, Career Suicide, Brutal Knight, Fucked Up, Tear It Up, Total Abuse and Violent Minds. If the amount of time White Lung has spent the Panda Digital stereo since receiving it is an indicator, then White Lung will be joining that list too.

RGC.com - 3½ stars out of 4 This debut album by White Lung gives me faith in the future of punk. The Vancouver band rages like the best riot grrrl bands but they move it 20 years forward with technical but dirty guitar playing that just makes me stop whatever I’m doing and admire it, as with the recent work of Screaming Females. The early singles by F—-ed Up were clearly an influence (the band cites Rocket From the Crypt), and although they’d probably deny it, the presence of pre-major label Hole is felt throughout.
As for recommended tracks to try, most any will give you a good feel, but I especially like the 85-second-long “Loose Heels,” the 114-second “Sleep Creep,” the 133-second “Wild Failure” and the epic-for-them 05-second “Elf/546 Kids.”