WE – Lightyears Ahead

The intro to the stoner rock band WE’s Lightyears Ahead basically sounds like bubbling bong water, a harbinger to what kind of music these Norway rockers play. WE definitely have a ‘70s feel to their music.

After the intro, “Kickin’” starts, you’ll hear a Rolling Stones sounding song with great lyrics: “Whenever I see you, I wanna sink my fist in your face, don’t be surprised when I kick your teeth in again!” It’s a pretty funny song, considering how happily vocalist Thomas Felberg delivers the vocals. This is the best song on the EP as well.

“R’N’R (I Put My Life …)” is a slow, rhythmically pumping tune that also harkens back to a couple decades ago. You’ll hear the repetition of the chorus, “I’ll hit the road jack,” a few times. Not a great song, but not bad. It does get interesting in the end with some falsetto sing-along with their female back-up singers.

Songs 4 and 5 are a tad strange, “Lost Crossroad Found,” and “tsoL daorssorC dnuoF,” respectively. The song that is spelled backwards is just noise, ala Pink Floyd, while the first song is a driving tune, with lyrics like “out here in the hemisphere, I now sit alone,” and “there’s moments in time on the other side of the one upside down.” You’ll basically get a Grateful Dead “just tokin’ on” feel to this song, since they say “just tokin’ on” a few times in the song. There’s probably more behind these two songs, but you’ll have to ask them.

The EP ends with a 13-minute song called “Freak Capital of the Universe.” This is a very noisy, trippy song as well. The guitars make noise like Hendrix did back in the day, and you’ll feel mellow regardless of if you have this song cranked or turned down so low you can barely hear it. About 8 minutes into the song, you’ll hear some very cool guitar playing, actually the first time they show off their musicianship on the whole CD. This part of the song is a “jam,” sort of, and they sound like they know what they are doing.

One thing for sure you can say about WE — they don’t sound like anyone else making music today. Sure, there is a genre of this kind of music, but WE sticks out, somehow. Another thing you can tell is this band doesn’t give a rat’s ass what reviewers or anyone else thinks about them; they are going to make the kind of music they want, period. Overall, they are noisy, melodic, funny, but most of all, interesting.