The Lepers

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The Lepers: From a Dark Place Adversity drives The Lepers’ new sound. by Tim McMahan

If there are moments on The Lepers’ new album, Feels So Good, that sound desperate, it might be because the songs were born out of a desperate situation. “It was the moment when you realize that you’re out of gas, your cell phone is dead, you’re in the middle of nowhere and you’re fucked. There is no lifeline, there are no more resources,” said guitarist/vocalist Owen Cleasby, who fronts the duo with drummer/percussionist Ken Brock. Cleasby said the band hit “rock bottom” upon discovering that the tracks they spent two and a half years recording with five different people were gone, technically unlistenable. “We were going to mix them and our engineer tried to pull up the files and they were screwed. The whole album was lost.” He immediately tried to track down an archived version, only to discover that one didn’t exist. “It was the most empty that I’ve ever felt. I was ready to say fuck this. I felt cursed.” That was in 2007, five years after the duo’s last album, Love From Above, was released on Lincoln’s now-defunct Caulfield Records. That album captured the Lepers’ then-signature sound with one impressive, drawn-out noise symphony after another, each as bleak and disturbing as the next, an orgy of dark brooding that bordered on dread and fear. Not exactly toe-tapping stuff. Cleasby said the music on the lost tracks had continued in the same dismal, art-fractured direction. But he was so frustrated by what had happened, he had no appetite for trying to rerecord the material. “It left the taste of bitter shit in my mouth,” he said. “I didn’t want to sing those songs or deal with it. I spent a month sitting at my desk with that feeling like winter was never going to end.” And then, the first sign of spring arrived in the form of a used bass guitar. “I ran across this bass at a pawn shop for $130,” he said of the 80-pound Harmony that’s now his favorite side arm. “It was a huge turnaround.” Switching to a bass from a guitar was evolutionary to The Lepers’ sound. Instead of the usual drone-over-tribal-drums layering, Cleasby and Brock’s new approach borders on club music. The poppiest moments of Feels So Good (the first two songs, “Baby Blues” and “You’re Not the One”) find the band reaching for a dark groove, desperately trying to reinvent simple punk-beat music reminiscent of Factory Records, Joy Division, Gang of Four and even Love and Rockets. At its least poppy moments (the rest of the album) the band gives worship to Sonic Youth, amping the noise with Brock’s ever-present toms and Cleasby’s thick, fuzzy bass lines that drive the songs forward while he barks out lyrics of isolation with an atonal yelp. “The first thing you hear on this record is a kick drum and that beat,” Cleasby said. “We had to find a new way of making music to stay interested in being a band. I think it rocks a little more, and is less of an art project.” Recorded in a South Omaha apartment with Engineer Mark Wolberg on two 8-track Tascam analog decks, and mixed in the spring of ‘09 by Joel Petersen of The Faint, Cleasby said he sent copies of Feels So Good to a handful of labels and “got some chatter but no one sealed the deal. It was the most attention we’ve had from any previous project, but it was still a little disheartening.” That didn’t stop them from pulling together artwork, finding a reasonable CD manufacturer in Texas and pressing the album themselves. “Now I’ve got a bunch of CDs in my living room again,” Cleasby said. “It feels great to be able to do what I want to with them. I think it was a huge step in the right direction to put this out ourselves.” Plans call for touring later this year, as The Lepers try to find a niche to fill hat will help them make money off the album. “If you’re not making money doing what you’re doing, you’re facing a labor of love, but a bleak future for your endeavor,” he said. “Or you become a local legend or the undying hobbyist.” Neither of which, he said, he’s interested in becoming.

Reviews of The Lepers' Caulfield Records release, The Love from Above:

"The Lepers are a two piece of drums and guitar that manages to make a sound quite large and significant. Comparisons to the darker more experimental sides of Sonic Youth, Unwound, and Birthday Party will be the most obvious.

The Love From Above is probably only intended for people with an open mind, as far as music goes. There isn't much to sing along with, rarely occasion to pump a fist in the air, and only random opportunity to tap the foot. If one is able to look past the initial lack of friendliness, this CD can become a welcome and handy evil buddy, replete with darkness, brooding, and peril throughout.

"Feel The Love" is the album's first proper song, and the guitars and very warm, ringy, and highly creepy, and sound very similar to the guitar tone used by Sonic Youth for their Evol album. The drumming is tribal, and the vocals, strangely enough, sound like the lead singer of math-metal rockers System of a Down, without the weird accent.

"Instrumental" is probably my favorite song from the album; the tribal drumming, bizarre guitar lines, and overall feel of the song remind me of the late Babes In Toyland's instrumental songs. The Lepers really cut loose on this song, too, spending a minute pounding away on a riff with some really dirty sounding distorted guitar work, whilst the drummer goes insane!

The Love From Above will make fans of math rock, art rock, and some goth kids very happy. I love the completely downtrodden and black nature of this album; it's as if the world is at its worst for the 60 or so minutes that this album lasts. One hundred percent recommended for fans of the moodier side of life."

Daniel Mitchell, INK 19

"Grade: A For a band with only a guitar player and drummer, The Lepers are full of variety. Their dynamic ranges from softly sung and played songs to outpourings of immense volume that might make you uncomfortable, like being in the room with your friend as his family is in the middle of some huge domestic dispute; if they weren't done so well. This same band configuration is how Lowercase started out, and there are actually some similarities between the songwriting and certainly with intensity, except this is more like later Lowercase without the bass. All told, any cd that begins with a track called "Finale" that is an intense instrumental piece is going to be worth checking out, and luckily for the Lepers, the rest of the cd is just as good. The Lepers fill the void of amazing bands like Unwound, Engine Kid and Lowercase who aren't around anymore, bands who know that it's just as important to be loud as can be as it is to be able to write a good song that doesn't have to rely on volume to be good."

GeekAmerica.com

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Owen Cleasby - Guitar, Vocals

Ken Brock - Drums

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"Listening to Lincoln experimental rock duo The Lepers is no easy task. It takes a certain amount of investment by an open-minded listener.

"You have to be bent toward our kind of music," says The Lepers' guitarist/vocalist Owen Cleasby, who shares the band with drummer Ken Brock. "If you don't have the patience to sit down and listen to the songs and how they develop, you won't appreciate them. It's not for people who are into power pop or three-minute songs."

The pay-off for perseverance, however, can be quite rewarding. On The Love from Above, The Lepers' just released full-length on Caulfield Records, the duo creates an orgy of dark brooding that borders on dread and despair. This is the music that should be playing in the background as Col. Kurtz is massacred by Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now.

Cleasby weaves echoing, textured guitars and lost-soul vocals over Brock's intricate, mathematically precise drumming. It all sounds like dark-oil-black-leather-midnight-death. And when Brock goes totally tribal and Cleasby loses it, like on the volcanic "Beating the Bushes," it borders on fear."

- Tim Macmahan, Lazy-I

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