4 out of 5

Label: digital download, bandcamp

Producer: Various per track?  Assuming?  I mean, logically.  I’m not even assuming.

Whatta nice little gesture – a free download from LD’s bandcamp page that nabs 1-2 tracks from each of their albums for your listening pleasure.  Does it act as a good intro to the band?  Yes, no – it lacks a bit of the build that occurs on a fully sequenced albums, leaning more toward delivering the hooky tracks (and opening with ‘Cincinnati on Replay,’ which I think got them a modicum of press thanks to it being 9-11 related), and thus it might be a hard sell – I feel like the overwhelming nature of the band’s sound on a lot of tracks is what shoos away passerby before the plucky play-style can do its thang – but calling free music a sale of stupid, yeah?  How do you kids use bandcamp anyway?  Are you discovering new music or just fluffing up your playlist?  Eat my poo?  Yeah.

It’s been at least a year since I’ve listened to Lefty’s – I sorta plucked up their stuff in a rush when I was collecting My Pal God Records (on which an EP and an album appeared), and though I dug the band, it’s taken some time away to realize something: they’re musical geniuses.  This is a really original sound.  A lot of complicated interplay of guitar, bass and drums, all pick-pocked in a staccato style that I’d set against Minus the Bear’s early finger tapping any day, as Lefty’s actually has non-stupid lyrics to stand by and isn’t scared to rough it up sometimes.  (Please note that I dig MTB, ‘kay?)  The thing that keeps this from being a less punky Q and Not U or something, though, is how smooth it all is, which is why I think it took me this long to sort of ‘wow’ over the mastery of it all.  But, the catch, as I said, is that the band has two versions of songs – fast-paced rockers and slower tunes, and those fast-paced ones are so consistently all-over-the-fretboard with confident vocals swooning smoothly atop that your ears just let it blend together.  They don’t quite have the showmanship down of other bands which have had success with the math thing, so it’s a little less accessible.  But totally worth the time.

LD101 gives you a few early tracks, which are a bit rougher in sound, plus a couple MPG ‘Process’ EP tracks, which are my faves – probably their most aggressive recording – and then some stuff from ‘Cheats,’ which found them paving a poppier, polished path that in no way sounded like radio play.  Why can’t more bands offer up these mini retrospectives?  What a good way to discover new music.