The 1981 Listening Post - Lifers - This House

 Reviewed by Paul J Zickler

Released: 1981 Lifers This House Genre: Post-Punk Rating: 2.75 out of 5 Highlights: Island Dreams Missing Persons This House Lifers were a Post-Punk Art Rock outfit from San Francisco who played some celebrated shows in the Bay Area, released one LP, This House, and then disappeared. Lead vocalist Clay Smith sounds like a more melodic Jello Biafra. Musically they echo many post-punk bands of the time - trebly guitars, shifting beats, bass front and center. Lyrically they lean more toward SF punk with some social conscience. Opening instrumental, A Quick Draw, sets the scene nicely, but the rest of the album is uneven. Island Dreams is an interesting track: opening with pitch wobbled guitar blasts, the rhythm teeters over a driving bass part, with guitar effects panned wide left and right as the shaky flat vocals hold the precarious center, barely. The lyrics are hard to discern, but there’s certainly a dreamlike quality, verging on nightmare. Other songs meander much less successfully: Waves has its moments, but it too often tips the balance between art and noise in the wrong direction. Smith’s voice is tough to take for too long, especially when it’s the main focus rather than being buried in the mix, although when he breaks out of the low baritone drone and does a little screaming (on the fadeout of The River) or ranting (Big Rock Candy Mountain), he’s more tolerable. The latter opens side two and shows the band off at its thrashiest, especially drummer David Warren. The beat continues on Missing Persons, a straight ahead anti-military punk song that tells the story of a friend who “might have joined the army / or it might have been Marines” and disappeared, never to return. “We miss him now / Where has he gone?” Car Mirrors has a similar vibe, but its one-note melody grates, and guitarist Jeffrey Trott doesn’t make bold enough choices. Still, there’s a refreshing energy during this three song blast that reminds me of better bands like Hüsker Du. Clearly the forays into gloom are ill advised, Lifers. Better to just go ahead and rock. The title track ends the record with lots of intriguing soundscapes and seems to serve as the band’s mission statement. “There are knocks coming from the room / It’s the noises that come too soon / It’s the drugs that haunt us here / It’s all of us / Through these years.” I’m not sure whether it’s deliberately lo-fi, but the whole album seems to be playing under several inches of mud. There’s the sound of a needle lifting off between sides, so it’s more likely just a bad YouTube transfer. It’s not unlistenable, but it would have been easier to appreciate without the layers of audio sludge. Maybe those are actually layers of time, since this album remains deeply lodged in its brief moment, unable to create a distinctive sound that would endure beyond the early 80’s post-punk window. I suppose Lifers were able to play in an emerging style and make a decent enough go of it, so give them props for that.