The Flying Luttenbachers - Losing the War Inside Our Heads (2024)

“Losing The War Inside Our Heads” is the 17th official album by The Flying Luttenbachers. It is a desolate, bracing collection of music showcasing five varied new tracks of intense, composed modernism. The previous release “Terror Iridescence” (2022) was an abstract horrorscape of alienated dissonance marking founding member Weasel Walter’s transition back to the original base of operations, Chicago. Following four albums with New York based personnel since reviving the Flying Luttenbachers in 2017 after a decade long hiatus, “Losing The War . . . “ is a transitional work like 2003’s epic “Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder”, one of the most complex and ambitious chapters in the entire saga. Largely conceived and executed by Walter solo as a stopgap between phases, the dark, rigorous constructions here are tightly sculpted and scripted examples of the “brutal prog” aesthetic the group pioneered in the early 2000s. From the cathartic, asymmetrical riffing of “The Solution is the Problem”, the quasi brutal death metal-influenced jigsaw puzzle “Id Vomit”, to the endless corridor of minimalistic, epic doom, “Crawling 1000 Meters Across A Cold Stone Floor Towards The Forbidden”, the mood is suffocatingly malevolent and oppressive, crammed full of bizarre twists, coruscating guitar abrasion, and relentless structural momentum. Another dramatic interpretation of 20th Century composer Olivier Messiaen shows up here (the previous one was on 2005’s “Cataclysm”, featuring future members of Deerhoof and Krallice) in the form of "Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum" movement five, which features a painstakingly faithful adaptation of the original concert score with dozens of obsessive guitar overdubs replacing the woodwinds and brass of the original arrangement. The direct link to the current Chicago-based lineup of the band is “Excruciation”, a long form piece based on melodic unison parts by Walter which launch into scathing, compact trio improvisations that feature the muscular chops and dangerous imaginations of Weasel Walter on guitar, Luke Polipnick on bass guitar, and Charlie Werber on drums (recently replaced by James Paul Nadien for the touring lineup). The Walter/Polipnick/Werber combination is also featured on the recent stripped-down, live-in-the-studio EP “Spectral Warrior Mythos 2”, released in Spring 2024 as a download and limited digipak CDR in time for a string of US dates as direct support to manic Japanese noise rock institution Melt-Banana. The visceral, wild Luttenbachers sets from this tour brought the house down and the group will continue to support the new releases over the course of 2024.