Lip Cream- 9 Shocks Terror LP (1987)
Are Lip Cream good? What are they doing? What did *they* think they were doing?
Here are some argument on why Lip Cream might not be good: 1) All their songs sound the same. 2) No understanding of dynamics. 3) Not catchy. 4) Have polished their style down to an affect-less, one-dimensional algorithm.
Let’s grant all of this. There is no “song-writing” in Lip Cream. Even worse, Lip Cream seems to be entirely “for-itself,” in the Hegelian sense: the motivation for making a Lip Cream album was apparently that it was possible to do so. (That is to say, no Lip Cream record is ever a “statement.”)
On the other hand, I quite like this band, but the burden is evidently on me to justify that statement.
*Song-writing.* Lip Cream may not write songs, but they do write killer riffs. It would be idiotic, though, to say either of the two following things—a) “And what else is a song than a collection of riffs?” or b) “A song, however, is more than a collection of riffs.” A Discharge song is precisely a collection of riffs, but many a metal song does not rise above being a collection of riffs. Let’s keep our heads about ourselves here. Lip Cream generate many a great riff, each of which is configured within its respective song relative to the other riffs. But this configuration is only ever a configuration—the songs don’t ever take on a logic of their own. The logic is always the logic of the parts which have been set up there. On the other hand, there is perhaps not a finer collection of riffs in hardcore, excepting Poison Idea.
*Guitar solos*. I love Lip Creams guitar solos. Nine songs, nine guitar solos. (Two in “Enough Time,” zero in “Ninth Nightmare.”) They are just squealing licks stolen from Motorhead’s “Fast” Eddie Clarke. In the Discharge tradition, they are both mandatory and completely irrelevant. [An exception might be made in the case of the song “Bandit,” from the PUNX compilation, which may also be the best, most tuneful Lip Cream song. live clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXePMaFkJS8] There is no narrative, no “advancing the song”—just a certain number of measures to fill. They are, however, devoid of the Iron Maiden tendency in guitar solos—namely, to engage in all manner of alerting-the-listener that, yes, a guitar solo is about to be played, you won’t want to miss this, guitar solo coming your way. Rather the opposite, in that the solos are so short that you could easily miss them, and also, they are ALL “signifier.” Where Iron Maiden feel the need to “celebrate” every solo (you’ll know what I mean if you watch any Maiden live videos), Lip Cream solos are all conclusion—no drama or lingering.
There’s no need to go through every aspect of this band. It is monotonous, riff-driven, raspy thrash. The longest song is 2:01. It’s impossible to remember what verse goes with what chorus.
I always give this advice to bands: “Take me on a journey.” Now, Lip Cream obviously don’t, from my description. Literally, each song is just a cycle of elements. Nevertheless, Lip Cream never rest on their laurels (production, speed, craziness). Every moment counts. One is never waiting around. The listener doesn’t sink into the lull of “some hardcore music is on.” If I might make a comparison to Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma—yes, it is “one thing after another” and not an epic. But this in turn *is* an effect, and a profound one. Because the cycle of parts never turns into a blur, an “indiscrete continuity” (Hegel), but rather it keeps up a spectacle, albeit a very compressed one. It somewhat lacks logic or drama, and finally does not rise to the level of the greats, but Lip Cream have all the cultural dignity of folk music or an unwritten tradition, even of a jazz improvisation—it’s not that it fails to be monumental; rather, the whirl of the moment is all. Hence the seeming infinity and apparent shortcomings of Lip Cream’s riff-art.
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