“Cut Me Loose” kicks off the 10 songs on Ivan Julian’s Swing Your Lanterns album. Right away the raw, live-sounding production is striking, and the strong Clash influence (Julian collaborated with them back in the day) on the track comes through.
Punk fans might recognize Julian from his founding member position in Richard Hell And The Voidoids. On this record, Julian brings different styles of rock that go back in the genre’s history, often laid back but also with some funky bits and some grit on some of the songs.
Lyrically, the words are about relationships a lot, but Julian steps out of that some, like on “I Am Not a Drone” where he sings, “The sun eats new horizons / The moon drinks lesser tides”.
There’s two music videos from the album: first, “Tell Me Lies,” one of a few ballads on the record …
… and a more recent, rocking video for the title track, “Swing Your Lanterns.”
Swing Your Lanterns is out now on Pravda Records on CD and digital and on preorder on LP.
