HOUSTON’S LENIN MAKES HEAVY SONGS FOR BAD TIMES
Lenin doesn’t lend itself to easy categorization, which is refreshing because punk rock has again and again descended into orthodoxy and homogenization as the edges of rebellion are sanded down over time. The Houston band’s own description — “anarcho tankie sludgecore” — appears to suffice, though admittedly, I was forced to look up “tankie,” a communist pejorative.
Frontman Steven Blind bellows his songs against capitalism with a voice unlike those typically heard in such music rooted in agitation. He’s not a growler, a mumbler, a sneerer or a howler. Rather, Blind sings with a low operatic voice that proves almost unsettling as it hovers over the music like an ominous fog.
“Yes,” he admits, “I was a little choir boy throughout junior high and high school.”
He found himself drawn to Judas Priest and Kiss, but “I don’t exactly have a high voice like Rob Halford and Paul Stanley. But I wanted to sing in a way that had some presence and power..”
A voice teacher urged him to sing in a classical tradition because, Blind says, “my voice was naturally suited to it... I didn’t really want to do an opera circuit thing.”
His commentary then takes a turn: “Modern opera houses are a shell of their former selves. They’re a product of this modern neo-liberal decadence we have these days…It’s fallen into the ice of capitalism, where everything is controlled and commodified.”
Talking to Blind is a long, conversational road trip, but one in which you stop for all the museums and markers. His passions and opinions run deep, but clearly, he digs deeper than surface-level, snap-take opinions. Keeping pace requires close attention, and even then he can slip away if you’re not careful. A discussion of ’80s Texas punk bands like the Big Boys, bends like twisted wire toward Aristotle, then Robespierre and, eventually, a phrase like “post-modern neoliberal marketology.”
Lenin late last year released “(Expletive) It Part 1: Times Have Been Worse,” described by the band as a “postscript road map to the first four years of the Trumpbranded zeitgeist of late capitalism.”
Lest anyone think that part two will be scuttled by the results of the 2020 election, Blind has no particular affinity for the victorious side, either.
“A point we wanted to make on the record is that the ills of our time are not exclusive to Donald Trump in any way, shape or form,” he says. “It’s just a rerun of an old tragedy.”
The music, similarly, took shape based on a series of aversions. Blind says he tried playing in “a little communist punk project in South Texas, but that wasn’t the most attractive prospect down there.” In Houston, he met bassist Just Jeremy and guitarist/electronics player Simon Rook, and they slowed things down a little. They all admire industrial music and tried to thread it through their sound but with the brakes applied.
“Slower tempos allowed me to do my bass baritone classical thing,” Blind says.
While information moves more swiftly than ever before, their messaging takes a long, thoughtful and anxious view.
“We seem to be in this weird interregnum period of decadence,” Blind says. “This middle point where the future doesn’t seem to be coming along any time soon. It puts me in a weird spot doing something like Lenin because it brings out this existentialist in me that feels like I’m not making a difference, but then, nothing makes a difference.”
Blind recognizes that comments like that might limit Lenin’s reach. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“As a band, we’re like an Adult Swim show that airs at 3 a.m.,” he says. “Which makes what we do hard to market. But part of me likes that. I’d rather not be pigeon-holed by any ready-made marketing metrics. If that happens, I’m not doing my job.”