Description
Adulkt Life, a ringing toll of a band. ‘There Is No Desire,’ a personalized shove of a record. Cabled, construction-site melodies. Rhythms like concrete barricades. A seesaw fight between vitality and desperation. Relentless focus. THAT VOICE.
On ‘There Is No Desire’ it feels like the band has let something unlatch inside them, an effect revealed across its ten tracks. The arc of this record is irreproachable—it begins weighted, ground down, encumbered. Struggling to freedom, it takes off at the midpoint, hyperactive with chiming notes and audible grinning. It ends, however, in squalling confession. An urgent, compulsive, high-speed document of weariness and resistance, ache and comfort.
‘There is No Desire’ is Adulkt Life’s second LP, succeeding ‘Book of Curses’ (2020, What’s Your Rupture). Adulkt Life is Sonny Barrett, Kevin Hendrick (ex-PRE and Male Bonding), Chris Rowley (ex-Huggy Bear), and John Arthur Webb (ex-PRE and Male Bonding). ‘There is No Desire’ is co-released by JABS (U$A) and Our Voltage (Germany).
If you live in Europe/UK/Asia/Africa/Australia shipping will be cheaper from Our Voltage
Reviews:
“So many bands fall into their predetermined genre roles, especially as they get older, but it’s clear that Adulkt Life are not interested in fulfilling anyone’s expectations other than their own.”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review by Matt Korvette in Yellow Green Red, 1 Jan 2024 [LINK]
“There is a lived-in world-weariness to this music, a pull between remaining relevant and revolutionary amid a life of overabundance…”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review by Nick Odorizzi in Maximum Rocknroll #487, Dec 2023 [LINK]
“Directed energy. Chris Rowley is the best voice in punk.”
– From “FACS’ Brian Case tells us about his favorite albums of 2023” on Brooklyn Vegan, 5 December 2023 [LINK]
“There Is No Desire is an even more astute wrangling of chaos than Adulkt Life’s fantastic debut, creating a deeply thought space where caustic sounds communicate urgent messages of compassion.”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review on All Music, 2023 [LINK]
“The music feels, for want of a better word, real. Made by people with jobs and bills and shit to deal with, for whom making it remains a true form of expression and release. A vital defence against something familiarly heavy and draining, expressed with grit, concentrated and finessed in equal measure.”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review by Tom Wilmott on his instagram account, 28 October 2023 [LINK]
“Adulkt Life are at their best when they inject a good deal of riff-age into this retro-inspired material. On “4:33” things neatly surge around a hook that would have appealed to The Jesus and Mary Chain circa Automatic. One can trace the influences here, of course, but the whole record sort of pulses with life.”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review by Glenn Griffith in A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed, 18 October 2023 [LINK]
“It doesn’t have the flashy co-ed confidence of Huggy Bear, but its colloquial humility makes it all the more impactful. They balance skillful precision w/ rawness in a way that demonstrates that they know exactly what they are doing.”
– From ‘There is No Desire’ review by Tim Kinsella on his instagram account, 17 October 2023 [LINK]
“There Is No Desire, launched by a flotilla of friendos, puts big riffs front and center (and they are big BIG riffs, some of John Webb’s biggest, at least of what I’ve heard, and hope he hasn’t been holding out on us all this time) and Chris Rowley’s lyrics-that-sound-like-the-collages-he-makes-look delivery feel like the safety in all of this for once.”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review by Doug Mosurock in Still Single, 5 October 2023 [LINK]
“Adulkt Life’s 2020 debut album, Book of Curses, was Rowley’s first new music since Huggy Bear and he’d clearly been storing a lot of pent-up energy and anger, as it was a stormer of a record. Three years later the group are back with their second album that finds all of their energy reserves at maximum again as Rowley lets it rip over post-apocalyptic riffage.”
– From “Indie Basement (10/6): the week in classic indie, college rock, and more” by Bill Pearis on Brooklyn Vegan, 6 October 2023 [LINK]
“This is a perfect echoing of the unbridled anger bubbling under an uneven surface of mendacious societal norms “it’s not the same round here like it used to be” espoused in the slow building psych punk menace that is the Art Of Boxing.”
– From ‘There Is No Desire’ review by Robin Webb in Narc Magazine, 3 Oct 2023 [LINK]
To view the complete production costs for this record, click HERE
