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Love Is Psychosis
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By: Sean Brown
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Calusa sounds like they’re having more fun than any band in
recent memory. Hard and fast, they play a modern version of
1980s punk rock along the lines of other Minneapolis icons like
Husker Du or The Replacements, on a larger scale there are
elements of the Ramones and Dead Kennedys. Unfortunately for
Calusa, that style went out of fashion twenty years ago, but
then again maybe that’s the whole concept behind Love is
Psychosis.Total running time on Love is Psychosis comes in at
roughly 42 minutes, so with 17 tracks, the listener is
definitely in for some hard and fast three chord punk. The
album’s lead off track “Rock & Roll Part III” has more of a pop
1950s feel to it than the rest of the album, setting the
listener up for something a little softer than what comes next.
From there, the album picks up the pace with traditional punk
rock lyrics, songs about girls, loneliness, love, pop-culture
and politics.
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An excellent song comes from the fifth track on the album,
“Beautiful Day”, a dynamic cover of “A Beautiful Day in the
Neighborhood,” from the old PBS children’s program Mr. Roger’s
Neighborhood. With savage guitar riffs and spot on vocals, this
is as good as anything legendary punk cover artists Me First and
the Gimme Gimmes have ever put out.
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The title track, “Love is Psychosis”, is another solid track,
fast and catchy, something reminiscent of Jello Biafra and the
Dead Kennedys. The lyrics tell the metaphorical story of a puppy
named Caesar falling in love and than getting his heart broken,
but learning to be tough, all over a solid drum and bass back
beat. Another Dead Kennedys-esque track comes at the very end in
“You’re Fucking Up the World Dick Cheney”. With typical punk
rock politics and a fairly self-explanatory title, it is nothing
if not a ton of fun.
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Two of the tracks show another side to Calusa that might make
listeners wonder about the direction of the band. “Both Ways of
the Heart” and “Moving Too Slow” have a different feel to them.
More modern indie rock than 80s punk, these are the types of
songs that could make Calusa into a band with more mass appeal,
which might not necessarily be the direction they want to go.
Calusa is a band with an interesting future ahead of them. Will
they continue to rock out hard to original 1980s style punk or
will they move in a more modern direction with the possibility
of broader appeal? Either way, hopefully they continue to sound
like they have as much fun as they had on Love is Psychosis
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