Lifeguard – Ripped and Torn

Ripped and Torn, the debut album by Chicago three-piece Lifeguard, may or may not take its title from the legendary Scottish punk fanzine of the same name. Or perhaps it references the torn t-shirts that rock writer Lester Bangs claimed the late Pere Ubu founder Peter Laughner died for “in the battle fires of his ripped emotions.” Or maybe it points to the trio’s ferociously destabilising take on melodic post-punk and high velocity hardcore, signposting their debt to the kind of year zero aesthetics that would reignite wild improvisational songforms with muzzy garage Messthetics in a way rarely extrapolated this side of Dredd Foole and The Din. Either way, Lifeguard stake their music on the kind of absolute sincerity of the first wave of garage bands, garage bands that took rock at its word, while simultaneously cutting it up with parallel traditions of freak.