Soft Skeletons
Label: French Kiss
Length: LP
Website: http://www.callmelightning.com/
Release Date: 2007-02-20
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Soft Skeletons
Chief among a frontman’s many responsibilities is selling the band’s drama convincingly, conveying the impression that everybody means business or at least is having so much fun pretending to mean business that everybody else buys into the pose. Call Me Lightning singer/guitarist/keyboardist Nathan Lilley is a natural in this respect; it’s easy to get the impression that he’s sucking on a crack pipe between vocal-booth stints, has listened to the Blood Brothers’ last record a thousand times, is deathly afraid of his collection of horror/vampire/ghost comics and is actually a suicidal high-school sophomore. This projected persona doesn’t exactly gel with the uncharacteristically peppy, nic-fit post-punk the trio splashes through on Soft Skeletons, but that conflict helps the record stand out among all of the records by bands who are hungrily sucking at this stylistic teat as though it were still 2004 and as though heavy eyeliner on skinny dudes was still exotic, exciting and new.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2007.