@EXCHANGE // LEMURIA 29/07/2013

Watching Lemuria perform is like listening to your best friend’s band, except in this case your friend’s band is really good and has been touring and making music for almost ten years. From the way they set up and break down their equipment to their on stage chemistry, the indie/punk trio radiates an intimate feeling of connection that draws the in audience.

The band opened with tracks their recently released album, The Distance is So Big, but jumped around their other albums, as well as handling a minor crisis with a faulty bass drum pedal. It was the most revealing part of the set because it was just the drummer, Alex Kerns, and guitarist/lead singer, Sheena Ozella, talking with the audience. 

So many bands and performs put on a show that more about image than the music their performing and watching this trio perform felt very different than watching others.

If I’m honest about this gig, it felt nice. Not sounded nice, actually felt nice, but not in the way where this genre of alternative and indie rock is starting to fall into the vacuous category of nostalgia.

This is a band that has a post hardcore and punk feel to them, but came at the tail end of the post hardcore movement. Now bands like Braid and Texas is the Reason are on their last tours or on a reunion tour or a nostalgia tour, but Lemuria came about a little after these bands had broke and then started to fade out of the spotlight (basically once being ‘emo’ started being a bad thing). 

Lemuria is the band that kept making awesome music, that has a clean and crisp sound to it, that feels refreshing and unique. You want to see them play up close because they’re so honest with how they perform. They aren’t playing that album you loved ten years ago. They play the one the just released and you’re and making a part of your life now.


Thanks to Albert Testani for kindly contributing this article. For further info regarding his work check out his website.