Lemuria is one of my Minnesota bands. One of the bands I listened to obsessively while we were living up there that, even though they’re from Buffalo, I still associate with long bike rides around the lakes, drives over the Mississippi on my way to work at the Half Price Books in Saint Paul, and blaring from my computer speakers alone in our apartment while Jenny was at work. My taste was changing a little in 2013 and I was revisiting a lot of the pop-punk from my teenage years looking to get back to basics. Lemuria took that pop-punk sound, married it to indie-pop, and yet all of the songs took surprising turns. Sheena Ozzella’s vocals wouldn’t be out of place in one of the K Records twee-pop bands from the 90s, but it’s also commanding (and an excellent contrast to Drummer Alex Kerns’ deadpan vocals). The bands 2017 release Recreational Hate is a fantastic record and an honorable mention, but The Distance is So Big wins out because it feels like a celebration. It also has “Brilliant Dancer” which was my runaway favorite song of 2013 and just put that thing on and try not to get sucked in. Usually when a song takes you on a ride it’s a 7-minute epic (see: Neko Case’s “Curse of the I-5 Corridor,” Destroyer’s “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker) and Lemuria shifts the song half a dozen times in about 3-minutes and somehow it feels...cohesive? Somehow, someway. Give the track a listen and if you’re not sold I don’t know how to help the dark lump of stone in the place where your joy should be.
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