Most times where a period of five years has elapsed between albums there’s a some kind of back story that involves people falling out with people and an awkward reunion, but for White Lung the gap between 2017’s Paradise and now is a simpler, but rarer (in this game) one. After coming into the studio to begin the process of laying down some vocals, singer Mish Barber-Way discovered that she was pregnant, a life changing moment for any woman but one with consequences given the music industry’s standard record-tour-record cycle.
Happily for Way one became two with the birth later of her second child, and together with uncertainty created by the pandemic, here everyone is half a decade later. Premonition is also the trio have said their fifth and last album, citing how much the upheval has changed all of their circumstances, making this final record a suitable full stop.
It’s also a teaser for how things might’ve been if the four year delay had never happened; gone is most of the ferocity which made 2014’s Deep Fantasy so compelling, to be replaced by a melodic pick up not too far from the West Coast screech of Hole or The Distillers. It’s fitting therefore that LA is the backdrop to Premonition‘s best moment Date Night, on which Way takes a wild dream like cab ride with a smokin’ and drinkin’ god, there to see the City of Angels burn.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 