4/8/11

Let's Fucking Wrestle Again | A Review of the Latest Let’s Wrestle Album Nursing Home


London based band Let’s Wrestle is set to release their second album Nursing Home in May of this year.   For those who appreciated the band’s debut album a follow-up was felt like a long time coming, even though it has only been two years. Their debut album, In The Court of the Wrestling Let’s was one of the most impressive and fully formed freshmen album released in 2009. Their musical style is a somewhat stripped down rock with minor detuned harmonies that permeate the band’s sound. The music of Let’s Wrestle is best suited for gritty little bastards who have problems with authority but none with women.  The boys of Let’s Wrestle Wesley Patrick Gonzalez, Darkus Bishop and Sam Pillayl have always had a touch of smugness to their lyrics that speaks to the listeners more sardonic sensibilities. You know those feelings. The ones that make you smirk and roll your eyes at sappy platitudes and aphorisms and also at people with overly developed vocabularies.       

Nursing Home starts off with In Dreams Part II, a tip of the hat to one of the band’s previously released songs. The new album starts off with a rattle and hum tracks, which is not totally unexpected from Let’s Wrestle. The track In The Suburbs feels like it’s paying homage to Arcade Fire’s last album of a similar title. But instead of being an introspective piece about the seemingly endless cycle of growing up, fleeing from and then not wanting to die in The Suburbs, Let’s Wrestle takes a more practical approach and focuses on the niceties. This track might have some of the familiar elements in it, but doesn’t take on that dismissive tone characterized in the band’s first album. In The Suburbs is just a bit too sweet.  By the middle of the album you start to wonder, where are the My Schedule and We Are The Men You'll Grow To Love Soon sort of songs on Nursing Home? Luckily the album shifts gears after the endearing, if not slightly depressing, track For My Mother, which recounts the passing of a loved one beat for beat. The tone of the album becomes more recognizable as that of Let’s Wrestle when the track I’m So Lazy turn arrives on the album’s queue. I’m So Lazy is an anthem for the post-modern stackers among us, those who are brutally self-aware of their own apathy and don’t really give a shit about it.

How does Nursing Home stack up against In The Court of the Wrestling Let’s?  The number of memorable tracks of the new album is far fewer than that of their first, but in the end Nursing Home turns out to be a solid follow up to Let’s Wrestle’s fantastic debut album.      

Release Date May 17th


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