Call Me Lightning
Soft Skeletons (Frenchkiss)
By Erin Wolf
Published: March 4th, 2007 | 11:40am
Call Me Lightning’s latest Soft Skeletons goes down like a mouthful of Jawbreakers — a kick in the teeth with its explosive, crunchy punk shell, fortified with a deliciously sweet center of danceable hooks. Each song is an unexpected flavor that surprises, yet satisfies with enough energy in the premier portion to sugar-buzz it into the latter part.
Lyrically, Soft Skeletons captures not only youthful energy, but youthful anguish, channeling a constant quest for identity against uncertainty. Shouty choruses paired with alternating chimey and doomy riffs reflect the freaked out manicness of youth. Soft Skeletons features Call Me Lightning perfecting their previous wacked-out writings, honed from their stints of playing countless frenzied home-shows.
The new material burns clean, sputtering occasionally back into the band’s roots. Shane Hochstetler’s drumming is nearly technically perfect, and Nathan Lilley’s trademark howl-growl is actually melodic as hell. This is as pretty as straight up post-punk and post-rock is going to get. But this really isn’t “post” anything. It’s rock as fuck. Just try to genre-pin it.
Issue #34
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