Montreal and Los Angeles trio American Lips return with ‘On Strike’, out now via Ancient Fashion Records. The jagged art rock full-length locks into absurdist humor, tightly wound rhythms, and splintered guitar lines that feel restless and deliberate. The record lands with immediacy, delivering sharp songs that buzz with urgency and a crooked sense of fun.
Fronted by Adrian Popovich of Tricky Woo and FRVITS, the band channels raw drive through a playful, serrated lens. Bassist and vocalist Jessica Bruzzese and drummer Sebastien Grainger of Death From Above 1979 bring muscle and precision, grounding the chaos with control. The response to the album has been lively and energized, with its dry wit and wired grooves hitting as cathartic and confidently alive.
Following ‘Kiss the Void’ and the maxi-single ‘Waste of Crime / Labor of Hate’, ‘On Strike’ arrives as a pointed manifesto for the burnout era. Songs like “Cardboard Trash”, “On Strike”, “Sleep”, and “Got It Made” skewer consumer culture, exhaustion, and hollow empire myths. Recorded at Ancient Fashion East in Montreal and Ancient Fashion West in Lucknow Ontario and Los Angeles, and mixed by Grainger, the album sounds noisy, human, and resolutely present.