#everyrecordiow

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 767: Lungfish Talking Songs for Walking

My first concert was Fugazi at the University of Hawaii back in the fall of '91. It was a formative experience, and so much of my musical interests can ultimately be traced back to that show. I was curious about anything that came out on the Dischord label or that was somehow affiliated with the DC hardcore scene. That should have included Baltimore's Lungfish, but at some point in high school some older punk kid said they sounded like U2, and that was enough to keep me from plunking down my allowance money on one of their albums. Consequently, they were always a bit of a mystery... an active Dischord band that never toured, never gave interviews, never made merch, never seemed to be a topic of conversation.

I wouldn't actually hear Lungfish until I was in college. I worked as a DJ at the campus radio station and there was an old copy of their debut album Necklace of Heads in the vinyl library. I gave it a few spins at home after sneaking it out of the station, and though I didn't pick up on any of those dreaded U2 vibes, it didn't resonate with me. It felt like a fairly typical early '90s post-hardcore album---mid-tempo, vaguely metallic, hints of melody but no strong hooks. I returned it to the station and decided Lungfish simply wasn't for me.

I actually don't remember when I heard Lungfish again. I have a foggy memory of catching part of their set here in Seattle back in '03 when they played with Juno and I recall a friend loaning me The Unanimous Hour CD to bring on a 2005 tour, but neither experience made me a convert. I feel like somewhere along the way I heard some bits and pieces that piqued my interest, and I decided to take the leap on buying their sophomore album Talking Songs for Walking on my first record shopping venture after moving to New York back in January 2013.

I immediately regretted my earlier hesitations. Talking Songs for Walking perfectly encapsulates spirit of the late '80s / early '90s Dischord sound---anthemic, pointed without being overtly political, and prone to moments of cacophony. They had the same sonic vocabulary as Fugazi---you could isolate any one of Lungfish's riffs and seamlessly slip it into a Fugazi song. But there was something a little different about their approach, something that was only hinted at on Talking Songs for Walking but that developed over the span of their career that made them become one of the most distinctive bands to bear the post-hardcore tag. While the Lungfish initially built their audience with the rousing melodic bombasts of songs like "Friend to Friend in Endtime" and "Samuel", they were stomping out the trailhead for their own unique path with the hypnotic diatribes of songs like "Broadcast" and "Non Dual Bliss."

Lungfish never came anywhere near attaining the popularity of Fugazi, likely because they continued on down that path towards "magic eye music,"---that kind of music that comes across as seems repetitious and devoid of dynamics on a cursory listen, but that reveals an almost hallucinatory depth if you immerse yourself in it.

That strange and unique quality is only in its infancy stage on Talking Songs for Walking. Perhaps the band knew from the outset that they would evolve into something new. Perhaps that's why they chose the name Lungfish---an homage to that fish that first crawled out of the ocean, slithering into some new territory, straddling the line between the past and future, a crude and unflattering creature full of promise and hope.