On their major-label debut ‘Gotta Get Out,’ The Linda Lindas broaden past punk into new wave and alt-rock. Our review
The Linda Lindas have never been shy about announcing their intentions, and Gotta Get Out opens with a thesis. “Gotta get out, outta this crowd, all the same sounds,” the Los Angeles quartet sing over a restless synth that gets sliced open by a stinging riff, and by the end of their third album, the mission is accomplished. This is the sound of a band outgrowing the very lane that made them famous, pushing past the excitable punk of their youth toward indie, pop-punk, slacker-rock, and new wave. Out August 28 via Reprise, it is a genuine leap.
The context makes the swing riskier than it looks. The Linda Lindas, Bela Salazar, Eloise Wong, and sisters Lucia and Mila de la Garza, built their name on no-frills DIY punk, first for their 2021 viral smash “Racist, Sexist Boy” and then across two albums for the beloved independent label Epitaph. Gotta Get Out marks their move to Reprise, an imprint of Warner, and with it the pressure to prove they could scale up without being sanded down. The good news is that no shmucky major-label censorship is evident here. If anything, the band sound hungrier and braver than ever.
Growing Up in Real Time
What is most striking about Gotta Get Out is how audibly the band are discovering new influences and absorbing them on the spot. The foreboding new-wave textures of the title track match its lyrical anomie, while “Everybody Told Me,” an early highlight, refracts 21st-century youthful alienation through icy keyboards and moody, Fontaines D.C.-adjacent alt-rock ambience. “High Horse” rides a groove into the sunset as the band harangue a holier-than-thou type, and the production throughout marks a clear step up in polish and ambition from their lo-fi beginnings. AllMusic aptly described the result as closer to what used to be called alternative rock, that catch-all for anything that felt exciting and other in the 1990s, than to unfettered punk.
Crucially, that maturation has not blunted their politics. When the band turn the dial up on their outspoken admonishment, the album finds its fire. “Blood on Our Hands” drags the state of the world through the mud, its drop-tuned guitars adding heat to Wong’s guttural snarl, while “Nothing Left” vociferously demands to know whether you are tired yet. For a band whose members are largely still teenagers, the fusion of arresting maturity and pressing urgency remains their superpower.
Torch-Passing and Growing Pains
The album’s most symbolic moment is “Closer,” which features the ever-prolific Hayley Williams tearing through a tormented chorus. The collaboration is loaded with meaning. Producer Carlos de la Garza, father of Lucia and Mila, also produced Paramore’s This Is Why, and the Linda Lindas’ turn toward 2000s British-indie textures shares that record’s DNA. Williams’ appearance plays as a genuine torch-passing, an emo elder blessing the heirs apparent, and it doubles as a jolt of catharsis.
Gotta Get Out is not flawless. The record is at its least interesting when it retreats to old habits, and the hardcore near-red-herrings “Blood on Your Hands” and “Break” feel too simplistic against the album’s more adventurous stretches. The gorgeously wistful closer “See You Next Time” is lovely on its own, but sits awkwardly after the 11 songs before it, and more than one critic has noted the band’s occasional reluctance to follow their new soundscapes all the way down the rabbit hole.
Still, those are the growing pains of a band expanding faster than most artists twice their age. Dropping a third album this assured before three-quarters of the group have left their teens is a staggering feat, and Gotta Get Out captures not just where the Linda Lindas are but where they are clearly headed. They have supported Green Day, the Rolling Stones, and Smashing Pumpkins, and packed tents at Reading & Leeds. On this evidence, the headlining slots are coming. Buckle up. Gotta Get Out is out now via Reprise.
