8/10
'Geronimo Hardstyle' opens like the world is ending and spends the next twelve tracks deciding whether that's actually a good enough reason to give up. And for Liteweight Champion, the answer is no.
The Columbus band's second album, and first as a fully formed four-piece, wraps that stubborn optimism inside huge shoegaze guitars, grunge abrasion and bright power-pop melody. The result is heavy without becoming joyless, melodic without softening the impact, and far stranger than a straightforward wall-of-sound rock record.
Sean Gleeson and the band clearly understand the appeal of crushing volume, but the hooks remain unusually prominent. Instead of burying the vocals inside the mix, it lets them cut through with a melodic directness that owes as much to The Beatles as it does to Deftones, Nothing or Narrow Head.
'Bloody Hell' starts from dissociation and the desire to disappear for a night, while 'Send One Down (While You’re Away)' escapes into alien imagery. While 'The Great Beyond' pushes towards reckless abandon, and 'Scorched Earth Serenity' turns high fantasy into a language for protecting personal sovereignty.
Those ideas could easily feel scattered, but they're tied together by the same underlying impulse. Tarot, aliens, unsolved mysteries, video games and fantasy become ways of talking around mental health, mortality, faith and the more difficult question of why anyone should keep participating in a world that can feel exhausting.
That's where the track 'Dead or Alive' becomes especially important. Its recognition that being alive is reason enough to pursue something meaningful quietly shifts the direction of the record. And by the time 'Life' arrives, the fantasy's purpose has changed. Escape has become less about abandoning reality and more about finding enough distance to return to it.
Liteweight Champion have built a record full of fire, death, strange creatures and imagined worlds, yet underneath everything, the message is remarkably simple. The world might be burning. You are still here. Keep driving.
