Serendipitwaddle - Tania Katherine

Probably about a year and a half ago, I went through Myspace looking for new bands. Of course, I started this search by going through the Myspace friends of bands I already loved. I came across Ludlow Lions.

After basically trumping them as God’s New York City gift to music to anyone who would listen, I moved past the handful of songs on their Myspace. After writing a strong review about the band on my now-defunct blog (Ah, leaving Blogspot for Tumblr…), someone from the band reached out to me and offered me their EP in exchange from telling everyone how much I loved them. Gee, was that difficult (note the sarcasm). There still aren’t words for how much I love that EP—it was one of my top CD’s of 2008 and on all my music affiliated sites, I elevated that CD’s SEO by continually naming it.

Fast forward to now. Yesterday, the band released their full-length for pay what you want download on their website. I’ve had the CD about 24 hours now and I have to say I still love it—not just because someone might think I’m supposed to but because it’s good.

Take the drugs out of Nirvana, the mental tantrums out of Modest Mouse and everything that is good and holy about music out of Brooklyn and you’d be close to this CD. While the song features songs from the EP like “Keyboard Teeth” (a song that sounds like nothing you have ever heard before in the best way possible), everything feels new. One could use hundreds of music critic terms about how No Stories sounds like this band or that scene band or how groundbreaking the sound is but fuck all of that: the album is great. Listening to it, I’m reminded that one is allowed to like music without crafting a reason for why that can earn them the proper scene points. “And You Lean Out” is both nostalgic and heartwarming. Like a pensive day in the rain, the track is comforting. Looking for where you can dance? Look no further than “We’re So Proud Of Doom,” a move-out, shake down that has no synthesizer and makes the rest of music ashamed they ever thought they needed it.

Especially with the ability to pay nothing for a great album, all need to reach out and grab it.

All that I have to say is that there’s this wonderful city called Cincinnati that the band should consider playing. Until then, I’ll just have to keep mentioning how much I love the new album.