OFF! is on Australia 2024

OFF! …are very much on.
 

OFF!’s first new album in eight years translates the work of an alien race attempting
to rebuild the remains of your destroyed record collection. Free LSD hits reset like The
Beatles conjuring Revolver, The Walker Brothers Nite Flights refusal to be a reunion
record, or that album by Baby Huey where every influence merges so effortlessly that it
is simply one sound unified. Like the first 3 records, the raging two-minute bonfires that
make up Free LSD were written by the core of the band, Keith Morris & Dimitri Coats.

The album introduces new members, drummer Justin Brown (Thundercat, Flying
Lotus, Herbie Hancock) and bassist Autry Fulbright II (...And You Will Know Us by the
Trail of Dead), who push the idea of punk into another dimension. Coats blankets a
number of these tracks with layers of electronics and Morris sounds timeless.

OFF! have never sounded better. BETTER. Sure, there are some Black Flag/Circle
Jerks Morris ghosts in here, Burning Brides riffs, Thundercat calisthenics, and Trail of
Dead burns, but that is just the skin of the thing. “War Above Los Angeles” is the
cornerstone of the record, carrying all of the scars of where the band was before, along
with otherworldly interplay by a group with phasers now set for stun. That is not to say
the no nonsense 90 second furnace blasts aren’t in full effect on tracks like “Kill To Be
Heard,” but as one of the architects of punk rock, singer Keith Morris says, "After
making music for as long as I have, it was time to use a palette that includes lime green,
turquoise, and magenta instead of the typical colors and shades that were involved in all
of the other break neck and car chase scenarios. Miles Davis with Herbie Hancock and
the Headhunters as opposed to Milo Goes to College.”

The band is working on a film to accompany the record. Coats explains, “Since
thinking of the album as a soundtrack to a weird sci-fi movie gave us permission to
experiment, and the film explains, in a fantastical way, the creation of the album, they
both go hand in hand as an overall art project.” Free LSD is a build of subterranean
howl that lifts off into the cosmos of Sun Ra and labelmates, The Stooges. OFF! is
supercharged for takeoff in what has now been confirmed as humanity’s new year zero.

https://www.offofficial.com/
https://offofficial.bandcamp.com/album/free-lsd