In Lieu + Shrive w/ Crucial Tauntaun and Baltic to Boardwalk

Fish Tank Promotions presents: From Minneapolis, Minnesota, In Lieu deals in bite-sized anthems, mixing the austerity and belligerence of noise rock with the soaring tunefulness of grunge. Fronted by vocalist/guitarist Nikii Post, the quartet crafts brief bangers out of sludgy and discordant guitars, pummeling drums, and spellbinding vocals. Post fully captivates with her desperate, throaty screams, occasionally revealing the radiant singing voice that lies behind it. On Hooligan’s title track, she bellows: “That’s why they call you a hooligan / Did you get caught cutting school again? / I’m sure they all want to be your friend / ‘Til you do something uncool again.” “‘Hooligan’ is simply a reminder that the concept of being ‘cool’ is always fragile,” she explains. Many bands sound like they are playing a bunch of songs they wrote and rehearsed; a select few emit something so natural and confident and cohesive and convincing, it hits more like pure communication than like songcraft. In these rare cases, the band is one united force and the music is a matter of life or death. On Hooligan, In Lieu presents itself as precisely this type of band. “We tend to lean into our most primal feelings and our music tends to remind me of an animal backed into a corner and the only option left is to bite,” says Post. Interestingly, In Lieu began as something else entirely. A gradual evolution of style, from quiet to loud, has brought Post to where she is today. “I started the band nine years ago and wrote all the material but was never happy with a release until this new one,” she states. “Hooligan is the first album I’ve been proud of and it took nine years of trying. I played acoustic at first but I always knew that quiet music wasn’t going to cut it for me. Eventually, Houdini made me want to play the way I do now. Our main influences are Melvins, Soundgarden, and a lot of the Amphetamine Reptile bands like Cows, Jawbox, Unsane, and The Jesus Lizard.” It took nine years of…