{"title":"Lifeguard","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ministry-energie","title":"Ministry \/ Energie","description":"\u003cp\u003eLifeguard return with new track “Ministry \/ Energie”.   The 7” is set to feature the title track, as well as a cover of The Wipers’ ‘Telepathic Love’.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Matador","offers":[{"title":"Black 7\"","offer_id":50442616799563,"sku":"2209918","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Lifeguard_MinistryEnergie_DigitalPackshot4000x4000_528ac474_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727001684"},{"product_id":"crowd-can-talk-dressed-in-trenches","title":"Crowd Can Talk \/ Dressed In Trenches","description":"\u003cp\u003eFormed in 2019, Lifeguard are Asher Case (bass, vocals), Isaac Lowenstein (drums, percussion), and Kai Slater (guitar, vocals). At its core, Lifeguard is a punk band. Their music is loud and energetic. It’s also, at its core, visceral and hypnotic. For the Chicago-based trio that can include repetition and blasts of speaker cone-shredding feedback. Their songs adeptly balance melody and chaos, rhythm and drone. Hooks and noise are held to the same standard. Both have to stick.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey’re a young band, but they’ve already found a place at the forefront of an important emerging music community in their hometown. They are quite prolific. In just three years, Lifeguard has put out a full-length, two EPs, and two 7” singles. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMatador Records now release \u003ci\u003eCrowd Can Talk \/ Dressed in Trenches\u003c\/i\u003e, a composite of two EPs by Lifeguard. ‘Crowd Can Talk’ was originally released in the summer of 2022 by Chicago label Born Yesterday, while ‘Dressed in Trenches’ features five brand new and unreleased songs. ‘Crowd Can Talk\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\/ Dressed in Trenches’  available on vinyl for the first time (A and B-sides of a 12”) and on CD.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCrowd Can Talk \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDressed in Trenches \u003c\/i\u003eare closely related. They were recorded in separate sessions, but at the same studio (Electrical Audio) and with the same engineer (Mike Lust) and within the space of 12 months. Each finds the band refining its voice – honing songs that are succinct, hooky, and propulsive. There's a newly disciplined attention to detail. Lifeguard write together through collaboration and improvisation, but they’ve learned to streamline their sound, to make each hook, beat, and gesture purposeful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn each record, there are echoes of underground guitar bands from decades past. This is not record-collector music, though. It’s the product of a present-day community. Lifeguard are, first and foremost, a performing band and the songs are written to stand up in that moment. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“More than old records – before that, before anything – we’re influenced by live shows and people around us,” explains Slater. “The inspiration comes from playing shows with people and having that mind-blown moment of seeing some friend play at Schubas or Book Club,” adds Lowenstein. “It’s happening on these tiny little scales of seeing kids play live and [knowing] this is something new and interesting.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Matador","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50481735631179,"sku":"2023893","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50481736221003,"sku":"2023894","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/DRESSED_IN_TRENCHES_COVER_71ac848f_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1727543946"},{"product_id":"ripped-and-torn-1","title":"Ripped and Torn","description":"\u003cp\u003eChicago’s Lifeguard release their debut album \u003cem\u003eRipped and Torn\u003c\/em\u003e on Matador Records. The youthful trio of Asher Case (bass, baritone guitar, vocals), Isaac Lowenstein (drums, synth), and Kai Slater (guitar, vocals) have been making music together since they were in high school, nearly a quarter of their lives. Noisy and immediate, cryptic but heartfelt, they draw inspiration from punk, dub, power-pop and experimental sounds, and bring them all together in explosive cacophony.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecorded last year in Chicago with producer Randy Randall (No Age), the album captures a claustrophobic scrappiness that evokes the feeling and energy of house parties and tightly-packed rooms, where ears are easily overwhelmed, and ragged improvisations connect with the same force as melodic hooks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe members of Lifeguard are no longer kids. As they’ve grown up, their tastes and identities have naturally diverged with Case, Lowenstein, and Slater each immersing themselves into passions and subcultures that lay outside of the group’s initial scope. But they’ve learned to make space for one another, mirroring the motto of UK experimental icons This Heat: \"All possible processes. All channels open. Twenty-four hour alert.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It Will Get Worse” evokes early punk, with Lowenstein swapping seamlessly between a blistering d-beat and a shuddering odd-time break. The dub-inflected “Like You’ll Lose” takes inspiration from Lee Perry’s tight drum sound and expansive lo-fi atmospherics, with Case’s baseline providing a center of gravity for skittering rhythms and tumbling echoes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Under Your Reach” has become a linchpin of the Lifeguard live set, where its electric organ intro often signals the close of a mid-set free-form freakout. That drone gives way to Slater’s laser-beam guitar riff, and to his and Case’s eerily anthemic vocals, before ultimately blasting off into buzzsaw noise in the song’s climactic breakdown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLifeguard remains a singular and intimate space where freedom, noise, and melody find visceral form. “The physical element is something we’re all very together on,” explains Slater. “The immediacy of making music. The instant pleasure and satisfaction of it.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Matador","offers":[{"title":"LP - White","offer_id":51596773130571,"sku":"R9028-4336","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":51596773097803,"sku":"R9028-5735","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":51596773065035,"sku":"R9028-9767","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/2d85d29b-dd3c-aa92-6e80-376fbf94e668.jpg?v=1744031163"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/lifeguard.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}