The House That Lords Built

Lords hail from Louisville, Kentucky, where one can only imagine what the locals think of their raucous, off-the-rails brand of anarcho-rock. Actually, it's nowhere near as anarchic as it comes across on first listen — the nine one-and-a-half minute tracks on this album are actually pretty tightly organized, and some of them (notably "Sermon on the Mount") even boast genuine musical subtleties, but good luck hearing them past the wild guitar clangor and manic yelling. If it weren't for the lyric sheet you'd have no idea that actual lyrics were involved, since not a single word is aurally decipherable; thanks to the lyric sheet, though, it's pretty clear that these boys have been deeply disappointed by organized religion at some point, and also, perhaps, by romantic love. But their anger comes across as clean and strangely enthusiastic, rather than dark and nihilistic. There's absolutely no reason why this hideous noise should be enjoyable at all, but for some reason it is.