2 weeks ago
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During the band's tour for their 2024 debut Hex Dealer, Kaser discovered a fraudster had used his personal details to make hundreds of purchases, including buying Lip Critic’s entire discography on Bandcamp. The purchases seemed fairly mundane," Kaser explains"...a lot of hotels, huge purchases at Costco and Walmart, but one stuck out. A single thirty-five dollar purchase on the website Bandcamp. My heart dropped, and when I went into Lip Critic’s Bandcamp it confirmed what I was afraid of. Whoever stole my card had bought Lip Critic’s whole discography. It made me sick. It was as if the scammer was reaching out from some abstract place into the real world, saying 'I see you.'"
Upon tracking down the culprit, they found a young fan in a Five Nights At Freddy’s hoodie who confessed, reciting Kaser’s stolen social security number and explaining he believed the band’s music contained hidden codes forming an elaborate scavenger hunt he had solved. "As much as it shook me, seeing him there in front of me felt harmless," Kaser recalls, "like a little kid playing a prank on you, unable to contain their excitement and watch you realise what’s happened."
"In my head I was grazing through all the lyrics I ever wrote, all the songs we’d ever put out, trying to understand how someone could have come to this conclusion. The more I stayed quiet the more he filled the space with words, detailing the parts of this grand narrative and puzzle that I had supposedly made."
Rather than involving the police, they recorded him at a 24-hour halal spot as he enthusiastically described the imagined mythology of the band – a vivid, accidental universe within their songs. "He said he knew certain songs were from the perspective of 'The ATM Man'," explains Kaser, "and some songs took place on Earth while others were placed in 'The Junk Space' and 'The Grocery Store Casino'."
Returning to work on new material for their second album on Partisan records, the band's original ideas felt lacklustre compared to the fan’s invented lore. "All the tracks felt too safe, even boring," says Kaser. "We had been over the moon about them in the months before the tour but now it all just felt weak. The session was massively unproductive in terms of music, but we couldn’t stop talking about the kid's story - my scammer’s story."
And so Lip Critic scrapped their plans and built the songs around the mythology Kaser's scammer believed already existed. "Theft World is an ode to the power and pervasiveness of stealing," the band says of the record. "It’s about taking something ugly and using it to make something cute."
Produced by Kaser and fellow band member Connor Kleitz, the record's lead track "Legs In A Snare" amps up the intensity and hardcore breakdowns of the band's sound and comes with with a video directed by Colter Fellows who has worked with the likes of Chanel Beads and Frost Children.
A US headline tour to support Theft World will see the band play 25 shows from later this month through to June, with a show in NYC at No Fun on 25 May.
Theft World artwork
Theft World tracklist
“Two Lucks”
“Jackpot”
“Debt Forest”
“Talon”
“Charity Dinner”
“Drumming With Izzy”
“My Blush (Strength of the Critic)”
“Shoplifting”
“Legs In A Snare”
“My Wife And The Goblin”
“Yard Sale (230 Take)”
“200 Bottles Of Eviction”
English (US) · 