PRESS

---

Grammy Magazine, Is Seattle The Next Seattle? April 2004
Excerpt: ..."The Lights may be one of the best examples of the new breed of Seattle bands."
— Charles R. Cross

---

All Music Guide, January 2004
The Lights' debut, Beautiful Bird finds the Seattle band in the midst of grabbing the most angular effects of their influences and simply running with them. Like Pavement playing Wire covers (try "I'm a Dangerous Snake"), or the Strokes jamming on the Fall, the members of the Lights have managed to grip the post-everything tumult of their previous outfit the Left Coast while feeling around for the best in indie rock hooks and lo-fi, garage propulsion. "Your Boyfriend Has a Pretty Machine" or "Victims of the Pleasure of the Sense of Hearing," for example, have the laconic but catchy slacker groove of something off of Room on Fire, but then there's "Righteous Anchor" — dark, a-melodic and brazen. It all somehow gels into a cohesive mess (in much the same way as Slanted and Enchanted), that shows that the Lights are happy — and adventurous enough — to step into the darkness and hope to emerge with something uninhibited, bold, and engaging. They succeed, too, and with a debut this exhilarating, they might just be following in the footsteps of the Pacific Northwest's mighty post-indie group Modest Mouse. — Charles Spano

---

Trampoline House magazine, January 2004
Excerpt: ..."As legend has it, The Lights saved rock n' Roll."

---

Three Imaginary Girls, January 2004
Best of 2003: Top 10 Local/Northwest Imaginary Albums of the Year
#10 The Lights - "Beautiful Bird" (Bop Tart) As one wise imaginary girl once said, "The Lights' raw jangly antagostism broiled my ears, provoked my imagination, and moved my writing pen to metaphor." This grindingly dissonant debut is a modern punk-garage-rock masterpiece.

---

Seattle Weekly, December 31, 2003
Now That's What We Call Seattle Music 2003!
The Lights, "Your Boyfriend Has a Pretty Machine" (Beautiful Bird, Bop Tart) If this song—hell, the entire album—doesn't induce a flashback to some dimly lit college dorm room or a crap-brown 1979 Pinto where you heard Pavement for the first time, then clearly you did not smoke enough pot or ride around in enough Pintos in the late '80s/early '90s. The dyspeptic, subverted pop sounds of the Lights embrace the chunk, jangle, and collide of early indie, tie it up around some Rough Trade-style fierceness, and then stand back and ask, "Now which one of you said college rock died when Michael Stipe started wearing dresses?".
-Laura Cassidy.

---

The Stranger, September 11, 2003
The Lights 'Beautiful Bird' feature article
Excerpt: ..."the Lights emerged from a private, sound-searching state to playing out more heavily in the past year, which has allowed the thoughtfully constructed and infinitely catchy Bird to be released to the public. Now, instead of being a Caustic Resin clone, the trio have songs like "Ice Course," a jangling, lonesome post-punk epic with tin-can guitar sounds and a winsome baritone from Chambers, and "Righteous Anchor," a song that slowly simmers in minimal bass before kick-starting with light percussion. The album is a testament both to the strength of the current Seattle post-punk world and to a band who took their time caring nothing about what was going on around them, emerging as one of this city's top eclectic-sounding talents."
-Jennifer Maerz.

---

KEXP 90.3 FM review of 'Beautiful Bird', August 2003
I'm pretty sure local band The Lights new release coming out on Bop Tart is so good that a new form of religion may be centered around its existence. It has the songs that were on the ep but that was a warm up to the religion of "The Lights". Sort of like a sign that something is going to happen. Lyrics that seem so simple come out in this complicated mess of a voice that can only be compared as something between Mark E Smith and Black Francis (and I mean "complicated mess" in the best form of the phrase.) The fractured rock backing this insanity is perfect.

I picture them in some weird black and white video and none of them are facing each other. They all have their backs to each other while the singer isn't even in the room. Hell, he might be outside in the yard singing. That's how it looks, that's how it sounds. This needs to be released soon. "You take away my hands but you must leave me my face". I love it. You'll love it. It could be the local release of the year.

"We're out drinking, we're out smoking, if this is living, well you got to be joking". Totally.

By the way I need a track list. I don't even know the names of these songs. I could also use a sandwich. I'm really hungry. Okay, I got a track list, but I could still use a sandwich.
-John Richards.

---

KEXP 90.3 FM review of 'Beautiful Bird', August 2003
This Seattle band follows up their debut EP with a brilliant full-length of chaotic garage-rock that is somewhere between the Fall and the Pixies.
-John Richards.

---

The Stranger, July 2003
The Lights, Snitches Get Stitches
(Re-bar) I recently got an advance of the new Lights record from Bop Tart, their local label, and I can't stop hitting "repeat." "Your Boyfriend Has a Pretty Machine" is getting deserved airplay on KEXP; if you've yet to hear the song--with its robotic marching beat, fluttering rhythms, and slightly distorted vocals--take a listen to these guys soon, because they're so fucking good they won't stay under the radar for long. If you like the new rock that's coming out of New York (the dancey, dark pop rumblings with bass lines so low they could keep you in black for hours, and guitar chords that vibrate into dissonance), the Lights are a great bridge between post-punk and post-pop. They weave hooks into every song, while still sounding like a couple of cool kids with record collections that could make the rest of us very envious.
-Jennifer Maerz.

---

The Stranger, July 2003
"...I know I'm late on this one, but I finally saw the Lights at the Crocodile on Tuesday, and realized what a great band those guys are. The trebly guitars and precise drumming patterns reminded me a bit of the A-Frames, except the Lights have a little faster, more pop hook to them. They're one of the best local bands I've stumbled across in a while, and their debut LP is coming out later this month."
-Jennifer Maerz.

---

Fortdrastic.com, May 2003
"... the sound of a good new rock band making good new rock..."
-EMKON.

---

Morning Faithful, April 2003
The Lights, "The Lights ep", Local. A mix of Strokes and The Fall is a good signpost. Brilliant lo-fi punk/rock. I love the Lights.
-John Richards, KEXP DJ.

---

One Night Stand, The Stranger, March 14, 2002
Now that this column has been thrust on me for the next few weeks, it should be noted that I am not one of those rabid music nutjobs like the column's previous, feeble-handed scribbler. That said, it should also be noted that, upon taking control of One-Night Stand, I nearly wet myself at the very first show I stumbled in to cover. And while I may have a spotty record with bladder control, my near-loss of fluid was not brought on by the usual means (excessive tickling, excessive inebriation, etc.), but rather, the pure joy of watching the Lights crash through their set. It was, quite simply, fucking amazing. The Lights are Craig Chambers (guitar/vocals), Jeff Albertson (bass/vocals), and P. J. Rogalski (drums), and their music, if a pigeonhole is needed, is like a mash of Pavement, Modest Mouse, and Jon Spencer--only, you know, not really. Loud, energetic, and recklessly creative (despite being shackled with the standard guitar-bass-drums scenario), their set, which was hideously brief, stunned me from the outset, and forced Stranger photographer Annie Marie and I to gush at them like giddy schoolgirls while they tried to break down their equipment.
-Bradley Steinbacher

---

Seattle Times, March 29, 2002
The Lights, a punk-garage trio that fans of the Strokes and the White Stripes should enjoy, play I-Spy on Wednesday ($6, 9 p.m.). The singer, Craig Chambers, sounds like a punked-up Steven Merritt (the Magnetic Fields guy), and the band boldly launches long, weird, noise jams that suggest an underground-New York style. (The Lights have a few downloadable songs at www.mp3.com.)
-Tom Scanlon

---

Show Preview, The Stranger
A few weeks ago I blubbered excitedly about The Lights, a smart, hideously talented indie-rock three-piece I had just stumbled upon. Tonight, everyone can check them out at I-Spy and tell me oui or non as to whether or not I was right to praise them. But even if they suck (which I'm positive they won't), at least the great Cripples are also on the bill, so attendees will not leave empty-handed.
-Bradley Steinbacher

---

Show Preview, Tablet
The Lights know how to play rock music and they know how to captivate an audience. Many bands attempt and hope to do at least one or the other, but this band does so in such a satisfying manner, that taking in a performance of theirs almost gives you a small sense of achievement. Go on now and feel good about yourself. You deserve The Lights.
-Jeff Rush

---

Show Preview, The Stranger
The Lights (Re-bar)
In every way possible for a Seattle concert to be, Pho Bang! is an anomaly. It's a punk-rock vaudevillian cabaret hosted by a pair of drag queens, Ursula Android and Jackie Hell, who utterly reject the common diva stylings, eschewing beads, feathers, and Las Vegas mascara for a depressing mishmash of trashed geriatric rejects and clown makeup: a diva-freak style. Further, this is performance art, and it will make your skin crawl, but not from the knee-jerk, please-just-stop reaction normally induced by the stuff. While discomfort is a goal of the spectacle and you'll often chuckle uneasily, hiding in the dark bar thinking, "Man those guys dressed as women have got balls," it's alluring since it's grouped with fiendish comedy (e.g., "What sexual position makes the ugliest kids?" "I don't know, ask your parents."). The night includes a promising punk set from The Lights and should end with the crowd dancing on the stage to a DJ.
-Josh Uhlir

---

Show Preview, The Portland Mercury
THE LIGHTS, THE THERMALS (2817 NE Oregon, 7 pm)
This month's Alphabet Dress includes Seattle's The Lights, a really good, rumbling, evil power-rock band with choppy timing and neat boy vocals, that appears to sing about death, coke, and fucking. Also: The Thermals, which is Hutch & Kathy, plus Jordan from the Operacycle, playing PUNK ROCK! How exciting!
-Julianne Shepard

---

Show Preview, The Stranger
"Cavity" with The Lights, Lazy Comet and the Swastika Girls (Sit & Spin)
The last time I saw The Lights, a nefarious guitar strap cut short their show. Which was a shame, since the crowd, though only about 25 people strong, was firmly planted in their palms. A decidedly whacked-out three-piece specializing in the kind of messy indie rock that shouldn't really work (which is to say, it's loud, occasionally droning, and often out of tune), The Lights nonetheless... er, rock (for lack of a better term), and are well worth whatever buckaroos you're asked to fork over.
-Bradley Steinbacher

back to top