Lice announce long-awaited second album, ‘Third Time At The Beach’
Lice, the uncompromising avant-garde rock group who released Wasteland: What Ails Our People Is Clear in January 2021, return today with a new single and an album launch date. Three years in the making, the group’s second studio album, Third Time At The Beach, looks to build upon the philosophical and sociopolitical themes established in the debut.
As is customary, Lice whet our appetite with a savoury plate to attune our palate for the main course. The lead single, ‘Red Fibres’, hears Alastair Shuttleworth’s commanding vocals return with deadly conviction as he hurls razor-sharp lyrics over pulsing punk-inspired instrumentation. Silas Dilkes’ effervescent lead work, essential to Lice’s potent DNA, meets a steady, driving groove courtesy of Gareth Johnson in this encouraging taster.
‘Red Fibres’ mustn’t be taken as a singular sample of things to come since Third Time At The Beach is divided into three chapters. The first movement, featuring the lead single and two other tracks, “presents the child being introduced to the world, hammered into shape through prevailing culture, and realising they have reached adulthood with a blinkered understanding of the world.”
The second, consisting of four tracks, “is a disorientating, alien sequence: re-evaluating fundamental concepts including money, time, nationhood and language.” Finally, the third movement finds the protagonist embracing these new ideas, “granting them a changed understanding of the world, and more agency in the path they take through it.”
The first previewing single is propellant and riotous, but we must expect all sorts of sonic alchemy on epic, tortuous journeys like Third Time At The Beach. The band warns of crushing industrial soundscapes that bleed fearlessly into “swampy avant-garde,” “rock freakouts,” and “lush piano balladry”.
Like Wasteland, this second offering is vividly conceptual. In a kaleidoscopic sound collage, the three movements traverse ancient civilisations, the Industrial Revolution, outer space, and the land of the dinosaurs. The story is complete with all sorts of fantastical and familiar characters, including medieval farmers, silver miners, cavemen, Napoleon, and Satan.
Lice note that, primarily, Third Time At The Beach is “about trying to understand the world and everything in it: history, science and the way we explain it all to each other. It’s a celebration of feeling confused or intimidated by the processes that shape our lives.”
After two years of sporadic activity, Lice are pleased to return to the road to support the new material. Some dates are yet to be confirmed, but the touring starts on May 29th, with a show at London’s Third Man Records. You can find more information here.
Lice will release Third Time At The Beach on September 20th, 2024, via AD93.
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