HeavyHardMetalmania: Lydia Laska: True norwegian black 'n' roll pop

True norwegian black 'n' roll pop

Oslo / Stavanger
Duplicate Records / Indie Distribution

In 2002, two hobos left Norway for the golden streets of Europe, but they only found trash.

Busking for beer cans and canned beans, living in dumpsters and car wrecks, songs started popping up like cockroaches. After seven months failing to find a singer, a fistfight nearly killed the band before it was even formed.

However, much like vermin these blokes wouldnt betray their pestilent nature and years later, (now a five-piece) once again found themselves plotting against the mundane. Candy Whorehole had to pick up the microphone himself.

Drawing inspiration from The Velvet Underground, Stooges, Sonic Youth, Bowie and oldschool black metal, the band recorded their first ep, brimming with infectious songwriting and brutally honest lyrics. Like a fucked up concoction of honey and bee stings, White Trash Attack feels like a bottle of Macallan single malt smashed in your face.

We're Nothing Compared To Ourselves is the follow-up to Lydia Laska's 2006 debut ep White Trash Attack, and the two releases can be seen as companion pieces. They both comprise material written in the same time period, in locations like Spain, Amsterdam, London, Stavanger and Oslo.

On We're Nothing… the band ups the ante several notches bringing a whole new set of venomous flavours to the table. Opener Love And Penetration is a filthy sing-along, except you wouldn't be caught dead singing along to those lyrics. Mandy is a piece of rock so infectious it's bound to leave rashes in unspeakable places, and the cover of L7's Fuel My Fire is sure to create bloodshed on the dancefloor in the seediest of bars. Add to that Slut Machine and you have a bad case of hedonist wastebin rock that'll have you face down in the gutter out of shame for enjoying it so much.