4 out of 5

Call Me Lightning – thanks to that band name and a predisposition for a particular breed of stomping drum fills, rollicking riffage, and throaty vocals – got stuck with Who comparisons right out of the gate.  They blended they’re sound with plenty of punk enthusiasm on their debut, though, marking them as a modernization of the sound, and then gave a bid at indie-fying it to a certain extent on followup Soft Skeletons.  After five years, though, the group essentially stopped trying to mess with the formula, and went full-on Who with third album When I Am Gone My Blood Will Be Free.

Well, almost.

Though CML operate in a 3- to 5-minute runtime that syncs with any given Who song, When I Am Gone has a layered sense of building from track to track: ebbing and flowing within a range continuously, such that we never quite break out into that ultimate single.  It’s not a horrible experience by any means, as the album flies by on a wave of laser-focus catchiness – with a bump in lyric quality from vocalist Nathan Lilley that delivers some type of interesting thesis on embracing life versus the oblique call-and-responses of previous material – but it’s pretty common that you’ll be absolutely jamming out to, say, opener Called to the Throne, basking in the way it breaks into a riff after an intense buildup of pummeling drums, only you’ll glance at the tracks and realize you’re actually on, like, track 7.  These aren’t actually similar songs, it’s just that you’ve gotten there without a single absolute peak that stops you in your tracks.

But note the high rating: it hardly stops the album from being a pure dollop of rock and roll, and the plus side of this is that you can keep the thing on repeat for quite a long time and only quit when your calf muscles tire from tapping your foot for nine days straight.  Greatness, though – an identifiably CML moment, comparable to the many moments The Who were capable of during their prime years – eludes the album.  Dang though, I’m comparing an upstart indie to one of those massively classic groups, and I’m saying: you’ve gotta listen to these guys.