Lip Critic

NY-based electronic punk band Lip Critic released Hex Dealer, their debut album and first with Partisan Records.

Produced in collaboration by vocalist Bret Kaser and Connor Kleitz, Hex Dealer is painted with a broad pallet of only the most extreme hues of emotion. Drummers Danny Eberle and Ilan Natter combine breakbeats and pingy snares with heavy cymbal and tom work, creating a singular mixture of classic punk/hardcore and electronic styles. The end result is 12 frantic tracks of postmodern pop for the genreless future.

It is a rare album that manages to maintain an air of theatricality for the duration of its runtime without ever feeling contrived. Slipping in and out of radio advertisement-style excitement, downtrodden crooning, and hardcore shouts and growls, every line sounds like it's being delivered by a cult leader who has occupied the announcer’s booth at a football stadium and refuses to come out.

A project of wide-reaching sonic and thematic curiosity, above all Hex Dealer is an inquisition into the state of the spiritual marketplace and the isolating results of consumption.

Defined by their frenetic live performances, Lip Critic doesn’t fit neatly into any scene. Their shows are known for their freewheeling experimentation, anchored by the caustic chemistry of drummers Natter and Eberle, who play facing one another with Kaser and Kleitz on samplers in the middle.