GENRE: POST PUNK/ INDIE ROCK/ PSYCHEDELIC POP/ ANTHEM
LABEL: Independent
2 years after they've released their EP 'Chingichanga', Kuala Lumpur band LUST is back with a new single called "Desire". The band fittingly calls this bright post-punk track with shouty refrain "an anthem for the age of distraction & excess" .
The single features an MV of quick cut images from local pop culture (Aliff Syukri, Dato' Vida, celebrity Najib Razak, etc), meme videos, and Internet sensations and also some clips of artists that have probably influenced them a lot (e.g. The Strokes, Butterfingers, Lou Reed, etc) .
Azrul, vocalist from Jaggfuzzbeats is shown superimposed on these clips and shouting the choruses (while acting sexy). Hilarious stuff, but also inadvertently profound. Desire is a dizzying tribute and/or commentary of all the images many of us grew up with in an era of social media. The minimal, straightforward structure of the song sucks you in, no-holds-barred.
The single comes from their upcoming album "Tekesima" that'll be coming out on March 2019 and is recorded in collaboration with Golden Mammoth, lead Syabil Al-Yahya. This gets us really excited because if "Desire" is any indicator, it seems like LUST isn't afraid to go for brighter, poppier sounds in comparison to their first EP. LUST has not lost their sheen over the past two years and has shown they can go further than the already wonderfully frantic psychedelic atmosphere of Chingichanga tracks like St. Aberdeen & Naga.
They wear the striped jacket of jovial post-punk with a swagger, even while singing a soaring, flashy theme for the nerve-wrecking realities of modernity, set in the context of a Malaysia figuring out how to grow up.
RATING:
★★★★☆