Lady Legs
“New album ‘Off Days’ is incoming, a potent Southern brew from a band whose classic take on songwriting still feels resolute and utterly fresh.””
Formed in 2012 in Auburn, Alabama, Lady Legs consists of John Sims (vocals, guitar), Grant Galtney (vocals, guitar), Seth Brown (vocals, bass) and Ellis Bernstein (drums). In under a decade, the band cut a record deal with boutique label Communicating Vessels (Wray, Man or Astro-Man?, The Dirty Lungs), played SXSW 2017, had a single featured as Song of the Day for Clash Magazine, and garnered praise from the likes of Iggy Pop. After writing a healthy batch of road-tested material during a southeast tour in 2018 the band spent 6 months tinkering in their label’s Birmingham studio, constantly asking “What if...?” The results: a 14 track, 44 minute exploration featuring shades of post-punk, saxophone, pedal steel, classic country, spoken word, psychedelic ambience, and so much more. Produced by Communicating Vessels, mixed by Brad Timko, and mastered by Paul Logus, OFF DAYS hurdles through several striking musical shades with a razor sharp sheen.
As announced by the stabs of guitar distortion and propulsive stomp of album opener “Quit Bringing Me Down,” gone are the sparkling, sun-soaked good vibes of the band’s 2018 debut LP HOLY HEATWAVE. Thematically, OFF DAYS explores the darkness lurking in the quieter moments of modern life – when you’re home from a night out and don’t completely recognize the person looking back at you in the mirror, or, as Galtney puts it during “Idle Hands,” “the devil never looks up/cause the devil’s always staring at me.“ According to the band, this collective ennui came out naturally during the songwriting process, with Lady Legs serving as a communal place of catharsis for each band member. However, attitude isn’t the only thing to come out of this fruitful incubation period in the studio – as the wandering piano chords of the mid-album “Interlude” fade away, Lady Legs stretch into their boldest songwriting yet. Where the album’s first half attacks adult malaise head on,“Learning From Myself” contemplates how easy it is to self-perpetuate morose feelings, with Brown’s gently dynamic bass and Galtney and Sims’ muted guitar leads gently tugging the song forward.
Later, the swelling pedal steel at the heart of “For You,” the street-lamp lit croon of the tile-track, the incorporation of heady spoken-word into “Thank You” all snapshot an exciting moment of restless creativity for a young band actively evolving their core sound.