Washington, D.C.-based post punk/dance punk outfit Light Beams — Justin Wm. Moyer (vocals), Sam Levine (drums), Arthur Noll (bass), along with newest members Leah Gage (vocals, percussion, samples) and Erin McCarley (vocals, percussion, samples) — will be releasing their third album Wild Life on Friday through legendary indie label Dischord Records in partnership with the band’s own imprint Mud Memory.
Wild Life is the first recorded output featuring the band as a quintet — with Gage and McCarley recruited to augment Lavine’s explosive drumming and Noll’s bass. Thematically, the album finds Moyer attempting to process his experience the protest, demonstrations and ultimately, the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol as a journalist on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team documenting the violent, chaotic and horrific experiences of that day. While being a collection of vignettes of post-Trump life, the album’s material also serves as a grand exploration of our current world at large.
The compulsion to tease meaning out of the everyday has long been the cornerstone of Light Beams’ overall aesthetic. But they also attempt to seek a future for punk in a new, increasingly dystopian century. As Light Beams’ Moyer says: “I can’t just do another guitar band after the genius of Beyoncé and Rihanna.”
The members of Light Beams have crafted a sound that they’ve dubbed “block rock” — their term for the sample-based approach they’ve developed and honed. The DC-based outfit have carved their own path, juxtaposing dark, lyrical themes against upbeat, polyrhythmic, danceable music. Their soon-to-be released album is a dauntless exploration of contemporary American life and reportedly, the most ambitious, fully-realized effort of their catalog to date.
Wild Life‘s latest single “Friendly” is a percussive and funky, ESG-meets-DFA Records-like track paired with shouted, call-and-response vocals. “Friendly” sees the DC-based outfit deftly unease and fear with dance floor friendly, hook-driven funk. The song is inspired by an encounter with a demonstrator, who confronted Moyer, while he was covering a demonstration outside the Supreme Court. The altercation quickly became threatening and physical. However, Moyer was able to defuse rather escalate the situation — hence, the title “Friendly.”
“I was covering a protest at the Supreme Court, interviewing a demonstrator who was very critical of the media. I had taken some photos of the scene and the protester started challenging me – physically challenging me – about my photos,” Moyer explains. “This person was getting very angry, and I was getting very angry. But I realized that the situation could be defused easily by, well, keeping things friendly. So I gave this person my phone and let him delete all the photos he objected to (which weren’t going to be published anyway). I thought this was a good outcome. I’m not always good at dealing with anger and, in a different part of my life, the argument might have ended a different way. This song is about that – and any situation where emotions threaten to get too big for the people experiencing them.”
Directed by Jonathan Howard, the accompanying video for “Friendly” features intimately shot footage of the band performing the song while on tour and in studio, and captures the band behind the scenes with long pans outward.