In classic underground style, Steve Lieberman, The Gangsta Rabbi, has returned with “Hey There, Laura!”, a wild new single that discards the rulebook in favor of raw, experimental energy. Called a “militia pop” song, this one is as defiant as the artist behind it and a genre-straddling figure in the worlds of indie rock and punk.
It’s an electrified collage of sound cutting through heavy metal riffs, symphonic explosions, shoegaze haze, and psychedelic chaos. It’s brash, brash, and paradoxically beautiful all at the same time. Never one to do the expected, Lieberman constructs a sound you’d hear when chaos is beginning to make out with clarity. There is an intentional messiness to “Hey There, Laura!”, and beneath all the hyperbole, there is emotion, intent, and a flicker of earnestness.
This single, inspired by someone named Laura whose name remains somewhat of a mystery, sounds like an open letter shouted through a megaphone on a massive dose of distortion. And Laura, muse, metaphor, or mystery, is found in every beat, every note, every breathless yelp Lieberman clears for takeoff. There’s an emotional tug that makes this track unexpectedly poignant.
Just when you feel you have the handle on the track, whether it’s punk, noise rock, or garage pop, it jolts. One minute is filled with screeching guitars and crust punk beats, and the next it flares into something swirling, symphonic, and weirdly melodic. The result is a three-minute thrill ride that commands attention and resists categories.
This isn’t one of those tracks you want to listen to as background noise, quietly cycling through curls, pressing, or deadlifts, but this insists that you hear, react, and feel. “Hey There, Laura!” is a testament, it turns out, to his outright resistance to categorization. At a time when so much music seems void of any original thought, Steve Lieberman, The Gangsta Rabbi, has dived deep into an art system of his own manufacture. It’s grimy, it’s strange, it’s poppy in its own perverse manner, and it’s unlike anything else you’ll hear this year.
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