LVL UP – Three Songs (7″ Stream)

by Steven Spoerl

LVL UP XXV

There are very few bands that this site has praised as heavily as LVL UP. Hoodwink’d topped last year’s best records list and their 4-way split with Radiator Hospital, Ovlov, and Krill topped the splits list. My personal contribution to the A Year’s Worth of Memories series was about a day spent with the band in Chicago (one that was capped off by a powerful set at Beat Kitchen). When I moved to Brooklyn, the members of LVL UP that help run (and live in) DBTS welcomed me to that space while I got settled. One of the things I was fortunate enough to experience during that time was a play-through of a test pressing of a 7″ that was unveiled today by The AV Club (in a piece that was- coincidentally- penned by another A Year’s Worth of Memories contributor, David Anthony), LVL UP’s Three Songs.

Created for a tour that the band’s about to embark on with Basement- a band that’s on the increasingly fascinating Run For Cover, the label that’s partnered with LVL UP’s brainchild (Double Double Whammy) for the record’s release. Appropriately, Three Songs is precisely three songs. Every one of the band’s contributing strings n’ songs members take a turn at the lead spot, each deepening a very specific trait of their approach and maximizing their penchant(s) for atmospherics. Dark, brooding, bruising, and deeply fascinating, it’s a new side of LVL UP that skyrockets the band’s already considerable intrigue with each successive song. Don’t be surprised if they wind up towards the top of another list come December.

Listen to Three Songs below and pre-order the 7″ in advance of its September 11 release date from Double Double Whammy and Run For Cover. Additionally, the band will have copies of the 7″ with them on tour, prior to its official release. Beneath the embed, explore a list of other great full streams to have surfaced in the past week.

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Spirit of the Beehive – You Are Arrived (But You’ve Been Cheated)
Fine Points – Astral Season
N a p s – You Will Live In A Cool Box
Grave Babies – Holographic Violence
Day Wave – Headcase
Nudes – 5 songs
EEN – ✌ i a n ✌
SSDD – First Comes Money
Samantha Crain – Under Branch & Thorn & Tree
Nano Kino – Never Seemed To Happen
Dan Andriano in the Emergency Room – Party Adjacent
Good Morning – On the Street/You
The Foreign Films – The Record Collector (side 3)