Liteweight Champion wants to make you levitate

Sean Gleeson and Co. will celebrate the release of their self-titled debut in concert at Ace of Cups on Thursday, Nov. 14,

By Andy Downing ● Culture, Music ● November 12, 2024

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“…In contrast with the last Campbell record – an outward-looking turn rooted in the sense of institutional abandonment and fury Gleeson felt in the early stages of the pandemic – Liteweight Champion songs stride a more inward course, with Gleeson parsing these shifting realities and the various ways they’ve upended his sense of identity. Recorded alongside Colin Giacalone, the resulting album arrives awash in lines that suggest a person for whom the ground has suddenly dropped out, Gleeson singing: “Can’t stop thinking ’bout the way I feel”; “In the wintertime/You can burn alive”; “If you have a heart/Don’t let it fall apart.”

Rather than wallowing in these sometimes-heady emotions, Gleeson and Giacalone employed them as tinder, transforming the bulk of the songs into fiery conflagrations that nod to everything from My Bloody Valentine (the swirling, oceanic “it is always”) to Hawthorne Heights (“PLIGHTS,” a thashier punk ripper). “In the rooms where we were recording, it was so loud all of the time, because we were just trying to make as much noise as possible,” Gleeson said. “I’m very inspired by the specific sound that can be made in a space, especially with electricity, with amplifiers, with drums, with vocals going through a PA. It’s about creating a sound … so loud it makes you want to laugh, that it makes you want to cry, but you’re elevated. I want to make people levitate with pure volume.”