LiP - ‘Romantic Punk’ review
LiP by Nic Howells
We checked out Manchester Mob LiP when we saw them supporting BEX back in November. The self-proclaimed “Romantic Punks" impressed us a lot that night, and dropped their latest EP in December. The EP, Romantic Punk dropped on December 19th, here’s what we thought.
The opening track ‘Sleeping Beauty’ is one we're already familiar with as they played this as a sneaky little unreleased number when we saw them with BEX. It has some very groovy guitar work to open and the vocals feel very natural. Their delivery is not quite sung, not quite spoken, almost like a freestyle. Frontman Quade already has a space in the rap game, but their work here has a loose jam-like feel to it. It still carries in some of the pararhyme and delivery of other genres, but with some almost jazzy instrumentals, namely the bass of Jetwash Jones that constantly chugs underneath. ‘Drink Alone’ follows, which has a much more somber and produced intro. We're brought back into the fold with ambient voices and a slow, almost ‘Hurt’ by Nine Inch Nails-like opening. This is a much different direction for LiP’s released content, leaning a lot more into the “Punk” part of the EP title. The whole track has a bit of extra edge. Ryan Hunt’s drums seem to hit harder, and the guitar both wails and echoes off in an intriguing and different sound. The pseudo-solo in the latter half of the track from Adrien Dubois packs a lot into a little with ‘Drink Alone’
The 2nd half of Romantic Punk is a very welcome addition, as both tracks are re-records of LiP’s previous singles. 'Burning Love Take II' is a punchier, faster version of last January's single version. I’m a big fan of bands working on material if we as reviewers, and better yet, as fans see a subtle and enjoyable change. There's a very clear level of polish across the new 'Burning Love' from a production standpoint. This new take on it further backs up our choice of it as one of their standout tracks when we saw them in November. The final track on the EP and 2nd-second attempt on the release is 'Thousand More Years'. After seeing LiP in November, I had the single version of this track welded to my Spotify playlist. As far as differences between the two versions go, they are hair-thin. However, when the song fits that well into LiP's repertoire, that's pretty secondary to the matter. That said, the EP’s version of 'Thousand Years' plays with a lot more ambiance. It's hard to fault LiP for putting polish and paint on what is likely their strongest, most memorable tune. This plays as an opposite to 'Sleeping Beauty', but maintains the effortless quality of the group. Where the opener felt like a carefree jam, this feels prepared, cathartic, and emotional.
The four songs do pretty well at achieving what an EP called Romantic Punk set out to do. This, as a debut release for LiP showed them as a multi-sided entity, without being too ambitious. As said a moment ago, everything you see them do in the 15 minutes, you can't fault them for. We said after their supporting set in November that we would be sitting with bated breath for when the EP came around, we weren't disappointed.
Romantic Punk is available to stream now. You can catch LiP as part of the Manchester scene supporting The Malakites at The Castle Hotel on January 20th, as well as at their headline release show in Gullivers on March 29th.
