Some of punks less known virtues are found on the final album from White Lung.
Punk rock and motherhood aren’t always mutually exclusive, and for White Lung singer Mish Way-Barber the realisation that for her at least it had become important was not an overnight one, admitting recently: ‘In retrospect I realize how much I thought about (having a family) and how much it contributed to my sadness for years. I didn’t really realize what was missing in my life.’
This acknowledgement – and acting on it – is all part of the story wrapped around Premonition that explains both its defiant core themes and at least some of the delay in it reaching us. Their fifth album, it’s also, they’ve confirmed, for now at least the trio’s final outing.
Way discovered she was pregnant whilst in the studio preparing to start work on what would eventually become the follow-up to 2017’s well received Paradise.
Immediately understanding that as a musician becoming a parent would cause upheaval on a grand scale, she also began to contemplate the prospect of both writing and singing whilst sober for the first time.
A second child followed, and by the time Premonition was originally due to be released lockdowns et al meant further extended delays. In some respects, it’s remarkable that it’s here at all.
As time has shifted, change is noticeable. Working again with producer Jesse Gander, much of the aggression and latent anger that scarred White Lung’s 2014 breakout release Deep Fantasy so impressively is gone, replaced by a melodic overflow that contrasts with Way’s often terse vocals.
Opener Hysteric sets the tone for this new accessibility – guitarist Kenneth William flexing at a hardcore tempo – but the lines are clean, any distortion minimal.
Perhaps this is because being pissed off all the time is no real use to anybody, but in amongst the powering riffs and drummer Anne-Marie Vassiliou’s pounding stick work there are at least some more contemplative zones; Under Glass is synth led whilst Mountain also starts that way before reverting to more familiar thrashy patterns.
Anyone expecting baby noises (was there anyone? Probably not) will be out of luck, but the experiences of unconditional love the singer has now happily discovered very much have an influence.
Bird for example was written after Way felt her son kick for the first time whilst on a flight between LA and Vancouver, whilst Girl is a ferocious cautionary tale for her daughter, one which she was actually presented with by William two years before her second child was born.
The highlight though is more than one step removed from any familial devotions. Date Night recounts the dream of a Hollywood encounter with God – complete with his/her whisky and smokes – one in which the suitably apocalyptic end features the drunken deity throwing a lit match onto the smouldering chaos, just so even they can watch it all burn.
It’s a mischievous vision, a subconscious parable that marks the boundary between an old life and a new one, but although it’s a twist to be admired, much of the rest is differentiated only by the speed at which it’s played; whilst a groove is great, without the menace of their earlier work these fuzzier edges inevitably deliver less thrills.
Half a decade may as well be a hundred years in music terms for any artist, but if this is to be White Lung’s swansong then whilst the attitude has undoubtedly mellowed, on Premonition White Lung have noisily honoured punk’s inclusivity and its less recognised gift for change.