In The Court Of The Wrestling Let's

We Say...

Review by Yancey Strickler

Let's Wrestle are big ol' softies masquerading as teen iconoclasts, their ASBO'ing sneers disguising how Lou Barlow their hearts can go. They put up a good front — fucking legends to the end, mate — but close listens to "Tanks" and "I'm in Fighting Mode" (both absolutely incredible) belie hearts exponentially bigger than the chips on their shoulders, the small-voiced fears and worries of an 18-year-old who doesn't fit in, is glad he doesn't (but maybe wishes he did) and who can bellow, "Why don't you stop wasting your time?/ Because I've been wasting my time for far too long/ And when you realize what you have done/ I hope you come and find me and say that you are wrong," all of it with this frank assuredness that says if that offends you it's your problem, not his.

We've all been there, haven't we? In the Court of the Wrestling Lets is a record about being young, which is to say that it's not a record about being young at all but simply a record that is young, its direction aimless, its order nonsensical, its ideas both myopic and overly broad. It's 16 songs in 42 minutes, including three ("I Won't Lie to You," "Insects" and "I'm in Fighting Mode") re-recorded from their earlier EP and singles, an oddly careerist move on their part that threw me the first dozen times I listened (the re-recordings are just different enough to be unsettling if you are an obsessed fan, as I am).

"You think you've seen the last of me/ This ain't the last of me/ I'm gonna see it to the end," begins "I'm in Fighting Mode," a song that has always reminded me of Silkworm's incredible "Slow Hands" (mid-'90s indie rock at its best). "Fighting Mode" is both sides of Let's Wrestle done perfectly, these defiant screams by 18-year-old singer/guitarist Wes Gonzalez of "I'm in fighting mode" near-tears, his voice quivering and cracking, his insolence more pleading than challenging, the little brother you not-so-secretly worry about.

There's fun stuff, too, of course. "It's Not Going to Happen" is wonderfully stupid pop-punk; "I'm in Love With Destruction" would have been the best song on You're Living All Over Me, his vocal a stoned, Mascis-like apologetic jumble where he miraculously drops into the best bits as he runs out of breath; and "We Are the Men You'll Grow to Love Soon" a perfectly snotty mock-anthem about going straight, getting jobs and getting normal with a ba-ba-ba'd chorus to rub your nose in it. (It also has the lyric, "We are the most reliable guys in the world/ But we got enough money/ To buy some G&T's for the girls…" and then they trail off into your imagination.)

This record is a masterpiece at illustrating what the world was like when the concept of "youth" didn't exist; that is to say the world before you turned 24. All three Let's Wrestlers are 18 — Wes the singer, Mike Lightning the prodigy-talented bassist and Darkus Bishop the drums — and they act it: live they delight in playing obscure tunes and avoiding the hits (they're slowly growing out of it) and all of their album covers have been hand-scrawled artwork, its amateurism carefully unrehearsed.

The most surprising thing about Wrestling Lets is a song called "Diana's Hair" about the death of Princess Diana, which happened when the boys were just seven-years-old. It's the most earnest song on the record, a clever reincarnation of a genuine sorrow for her death into a tribute to a dear friend. "Eleven years ago/ A princess died/ And the rooms are still bare/ But I found a way/ To get over it/ I found a friend with Diana's hair/ And he is a very good friend." It touches on Charles and Camilla, and Wes registers his reproach: "the royals are no longer in my good books," he sadly sighs.

After spending untold hours with this record, I keep coming back to "Diana's Hair" and its quiet earnestness. In Wes' mourning for a moment that seems so ripe for mocking, we hear the boy that he was before, the vulnerable kid who bites his nails and gets his feelings hurt and whose heart, full of love and longing, has yet to be broken. That's not this record by any means, but it's nice to know it's still there.