Distants LP

Distants, at one point, were a Chicago band. Back in 2016, when the band started, the members were all based in the Windy City, but as the years passed life got more complicated. Today the band describes itself as having members who “live in various cities throughout the eastern Midwest,” with no specific home base. The kinds of complications that prompted that shift feel like the same things that fuel Alex Angus’s songwriting on LP. Angus, who sings and plays guitar described the record as being about “loss/grief, ego, shit jobs, and self-awareness” and there’s a cathartic quality to songs like “Belly Up” and “Jolly Good.” But the record, which weaves between punk, emo and indie-rock, is anything but a downer. The opener “Great Lakes Paving Company” soars with dueling guitars from Angus and Mynor Gonzalez while backed by Steve Brewer on drums and Zach Leipham on bass. Distants' LP has a classic Midwestern quality of sounding shiny and bright and gruff and dark all at the same time.