Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Life in General - s/t ep (1982, Panece)

By 1992 it was a cinch to typecast music emanating from Seattle. Ten years prior, not so much.  Life in General were gestated under the name of X-15, but released two records under the banner of LiG including this ep in '82.  Despite the brevity of their tunes, they didn't quite breach into punk or hardcore environs (and certainly not some proto form of grunge), yet they struck me as discerning connoisseurs of UK post-punk a la Bauhaus and Gang of Four, with mouthpiece Kelly Mitchell dead-panning Peter Murphy at times, just not as austere. The urgency coursing through "The Fog" and "Affliction" really feed into Life's distinctive schtick and make this all too-fleeting ep something of a revelation, or at the very least a revelation when it dropped some 41 years ago. Live versions of material from this record along with a subsequent single and previously unreleased tunes were later compiled under the band's former X-15 moniker in the guise of Bombs and Insurance

01. Respite Lost
02. The Fog
03. That's Life
04. Affliction
05. One Way

1 comment:

Failsafe said...

This is pretty post-punk good. I can imagine being into it on release if I'd heard it.
Definitely bauhaus and pistols in the vocals, hard not to at the time in the genre I guess. nice recording too. Thanks for the share on this.