Light Beams – Wild Life

On their upcoming album Wild Life, DC dance punks Light Beams paint a surreal portrait of a world filtered through front person Justin Moyers recent experiences as a protest reporter (and a member of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol). The shadow of the attack looms large over the record as the quintet acutely distills nine songs into a twenty-five-minute package that voyages through insurrection deep into the bittersweet heart of 21st-century America. From their self-titled debut album through 2020s Self Help, Light Beams have eschewed traditional melody instruments in favor of Moyers minimalist samplers and vocals, Sam Lavines drumming and Arthur Nolls basslines. On Wild Life, they expand this palette with the addition of Leah Gage (vocals, rototoms) and Erin McCarley (vocals, timbales, samples). The result: bigger sounds, bigger themes, and a bigger canvas.