Lesibu Grand The Legend of Miranda (EP)

A violent volley of riffs comes rolling out of the silence as Lesibu Grand fires off “Runnin’ Round,” the first of five new songs on their debut EP, The Legend of Miranda, and while they do a fine job of setting the tone for what’s to come in the next twenty minutes of rock reveling, they give us only a small sampling of what this band can really do when all of the chips are down on the table. Lesibu Grand employ a take no prisoners style of play in this opening deluge of distortion, but as they transition into the hard stomp of “Miranda,” it becomes obvious to all within earshot that this is a band adept at multiple means of sonic assault. Unlike “Runnin’ Round,” “Miranda” works off of a Doolittle-style rhythm that serves as the perfect canvas for the toned attack of the lead vocal (while also creating a bit of stability for the unruly guitar play), and inside of a four-minute jam disproves any and every music connoisseur who had the nerve to suggest that rock was dead in 2019.

URL: http://www.lesibugrand.com/

“Hush Hush” shifts gears away from the brute tenacity of “Miranda” and more towards a Sleater-Kinney-esque swing pattern, but the monolithic melodies keep getting bigger and bigger as we find our way through the guts of The Legend of Miranda. The vocal is soft and velvety at this juncture of the tracklist, but singer Tyler-Simone Molton quickly finds her way back into the grind of the gears with a more formidable performance in “Only American in the Room,” which I felt was her best look on this record. She’s got a lot of raw talent that’s only being partially exploited in these five songs, and considering how exceptional her voice is sounding in this context, it really makes me wonder just how powerful it would be if given just a bit more space to spread out. Molton is the most charming component in Lesibu Grand, and were she not standing at the front of her band, I don’t believe that The Legend of Miranda would be the theatrical slab of melodic punk grooves that it is here.

I-TUNES: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-legend-of-miranda-ep/1476325773

The exotic “Mi Sueño” spends no less than five minutes unfurling before us in real time, and when its raging into its most moving climax, there’s a moment where it becomes difficult to tell where Molton’s vocal ends and the immaculate instrumental melody beneath it begins. It’s seamless and elaborate at the same time, and when the song finishes and all we’re left with is the lingering sway of the percussion that it leaves behind, it takes a lot of strength to resist going back through the track all over again. Most everything on The Legend of Miranda tends to have that effect on those who give it a proper spin, and having fallen in love with its quintet of crooner-led rock tunes for myself just this past week, I can vouch that it lives up to all of the buzz that has surrounded its release and then some.

Michael Rand