White Lung

Deep Fantasy (Domino)

All three White Lung LPs fit onto one disc with room leftover for an EP. Third “full-length” Deep Fantasy splits the difference between the Vancouver trio’s first two fast tracks, both in time and grace. As raw as 2010 debut It’s the Evil (24 minutes), and as svelte but sweet as 19-minute successor Sorry two years later, this cigarette break of hardcore pop encases Kenneth William’s sawing riffs – buzz saw, jigsaw, circular saw – in Ramonesian post-punk (“Down It Goes”). Vocal dominatrix Mish Way, and beat jackhammer Anne-Marie Vassiliou then pile on the Go-Go’s-gone-baditude (“Face Down”). Hornet nests and power chords (“Drown With the Monster,” “Wrong Star”), three-alarm moshes (“I Believe You”), and backbreaking rodeo rides (“Snake Jaw”) punctuate Way’s helplessly spiteful femme fatalism (“Lucky One”). Deep Fantasy falls short of its predecessor’s Hellraiser hooks, but only by degrees of fuck-and-run whiplash.

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This article appears in July 18 • 2014.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.