WU LYF- "Go Tell Fire On The Mountain"

WU LYF, a band that is truly a diamond in the rough and are rare commodity among their peers. That is to say World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation play the game by their rules, and that is they answer to no one. This is a band that has pissed off the press, only to receive praise for doing so, their cryptic web presence or should I say lack of web presence, makes Radiohead’s presence look like that of someone say Justin Bieber. Frontman Ellery Roberts, presence is completely incomprehensible yet alluring in an artistic way that redefines the basis of experimentation with music. This acts as the main focal point on Go Tell Fire on the Mountain- an album that generates a religious cleansing of the spirit through tribal like drumbeats, scathing guitar chords, and the celebratory moment when everyone raises their beer in unison forming a tight knit brotherly bond.

Go Tell Fire, is unique in that it brings forth a comforting sense of togetherness, an element that usually goes unnoticed in music. When looking at this album listeners will notice that it syncs up to just about everything, the tension of a morning commute, a TV spot of a sporting event even the climatic moments of a film. While one would think that this sound could be achieved within a studio setting, WU LYF on the other hand took a similar route that Arcade Fire did on Neon Bible, which was to record the album in an abandoned church. While recording in an empty church seems like a gimmick in generating intrigue to press hungry for information, the acoustics of a building of that sort provides the necessary essence that allowed the band to capture the sound they were search for. The enriching lush melodic guitar lines carry an extra dimension with each attack and release, while the pipe organ carries out an angelic sustain. What this does for the percussion is enhance each blow, allowing the reverb to enhance the kick drum in a way that takes your breath away. Allowing the band to live up to their self-generated hype.

Each song acts as though it were it’s own little anthem, the albums opener “LYF” lone organ echoes similar sounding chords of the church hymn “Go tell it on the Mountain” and slowly begins to crescendo with the addition of drums and guitar as Roberts goes into a tribal like singing and shouting, embracing his inner animal instincts, giving the song a life of its own. The crème de la crème of the album is last summer’s single “Spitting Blood” that allows the listener to interpret it anyway he/she desires, by the time the song gets to its chorus Ellery and company pit out “we are so happy so happy to see…” that it’s like they’re all raising their glasses as they finish off another beer.

Go tell fire on the Mountain is truly in a league of its own if you were to look at everything else that has been released up to this point this year. WU LYF are one of the few artists that have crafted an album that is actually rewarding in an artistic sense and will most likely be over looked when it comes down to crafting end of the year lists.