On October 4th White Reaper stopped by Iowa City to play a show at Gabe’s alongside World’s Worst & Lip Critic, this is one of the many shows in their 2025 tour to celebrate the release of their new album Only Slightly Empty. Part of The Englert Theater’s Track Zero Series, they brought some really great independent and up-incoming artists that made for a really fun night.
White Reaper
White Reaper was the final headlining act and closed out the night with a bang. Pulling partially from their new album and partially from their old hits, the hour worth of consistently engaging music Louisville alt rockers made the room extremely lively and fun to listen too. White Reaper have been pushing out good stuff in the Indie music scene for the last decade with albums like The World’s Best American Band and You Deserve Love. Their new album Only Slightly Empty maintains this consistency while also introducing more mature theme’s about relationships, fame and our world at large. If you want a more in depth review of the album you can read our review of it by KRUI writer and reporter Will Clair.
World’s Worst
World’s Worst first opened up the show phenomenally pulling mainly from their new album American Muscle. With a variety of influences from genres like Shoegaze, Emo, Grunge & Slacker Rock they had a really great performance filled with a nice mix of more relaxed and more high energy songs. My favorite from the set was their last track Rockets. It ran pretty long but I would’ve listened for 10 more minutes because of how it used its repetitive drumming, hypnotic bass lines and beautiful guitar tones (shoutout fuzz peddles) to create this really powerful and addicting wall of sound. After the set was over I got to speak with two of their band members Zach and Jake and had a nice conversation about some of their origins and influences. They all met in the skateboarding scene around University of Utah and formed Worlds Worst in late 2019, after having to split up briefly during covid they reformed towards the end of 2020 and have been going really strong since. If you wanna hear more about their story you can check out the interview KRUI’s own Logan Melia did with them. Great work and thanks for doing an interview with us World’s Worst!
Lip Critic
Lip Critic really amped up the audience for their half hour. Coming in with two drummers, a power electronic set and a lead singer who you would’ve thought was on coke. The pit went into a frenzy. Moshing, walls of death, crowd surfing and general high energy dancing made for a really fun set. The lead singer added to this quite a bit with running into the crowd multiple times and other crazy hijinks. Their mix between styles of dance and electronic music with more traditional American hardcore and metal makes for a really interesting boundary pushing music.
I wanted to highlight their unique style and genre blending that was seen across their performance and music as a whole. Their set consisted mainly of their 2024 album Hex Dealer which I got to buy a CD of afterwards at their merch stand. After taking it home to listen I immediately felt the same rush I felt at their show within the first few tracks and this kept going for the whole album
Kicking off the album with It’s The Magic, the track starts with a powerful bass and initially calm vocals before slowly introducing more instruments. Going into the second chorus the songs continues to intensify until the screeching vocals and heavy drums in verse three, carrying on for the rest of the song.
Track two Love Will Redeem You wasted no time amping up. The heavy repetition and vocal effects are extremely effective at creating this chaotic almost manic vibe. This theme of manic anger continues on into the song The Heart, which is seemingly about an inescapable feeling of pain rushing through someone’s heart. The scattered vocal lines mixed with lyrics such as “Is beating inside me, a feeling untimely, can’t fight it off, can’t fight it off” effectively induces this feeling of anxiety and paranoia within the listener.
When speaking with the group after the show they discussed some of their influences within industrial hip hop artists such as Death Grips and Danny Brown, the latter of which they’ve actually opened for. These influences really show within their next two tracks. Starting with Bork Pelly we get a fun posse cut with underground rappers GHOSH & ID.Sus and continuing onto the very catchy Spirit Bomber. Both of them are the first fully rapped songs on the album and feature these very manically delivered non linear lines akin to MC Ride and other industrial hip hop artists.
The second and final feature on the track comes from DJ Izzy Da Fonseca on Death Lurking. The repetitive vocal lines create a very hypnotic yet fun and catchy atmosphere leading perfectly into Milky Max. Their most popular song delivers perfectly on what so much of what makes this album so great from front to back. The infectious riffs, the manic yet catchy lyrics, the insane vocals combining with intense electronic production and live drumming create such a fun and powerful song that was both amazing live and amazing to listen too at home.
The next three tracks are where you can see their hardcore roots blossom further. The heavy drumming in the Sermon outro, the breakneck pace of I’m Alive and the screeching vocals on My Wife and The Goblin really push the listeners stamina with nonstop high energy songs. In The Wawa (Convinced I Am God) in it’s own unique way tells what I believe to be a story of a man rejected by conventional society and norms and turning to find his own truth, ie: convincing himself he’s god. I think this perfectly exemplifies how many of the songs lyrics (despite being seemingly nonsensical) have some deeper ideas and meaning behind them. This concludes with the final track Toxic Dodger a braggadocious track that I see as the group almost manifesting their success within music. Repeating “If you wanna stop me you’re gonna have to kill me” until you believe it as hard as they do, and to be quite honest after finishing this record I think I do.
Even a year after its initial release Hex Dealer still remains one of the most exciting and boundary pushing release’s within underground music and this show was living proof of that. Their high energy genre blending sound and undeniable production talent lead to great albums and even better performances. I think its valuable for music audiences to challenge their ears by listening to music that doesn’t neatly fit into specific genre labels which is why I think artists like Lip Critic are so important. And I would definitely keep them on my radar of up-incoming talent within Electronic, Experimental Hip Hop and Noise music.
Related Posts
Interview: World’s Worst on their past, present, and the Real Housewives of SLC
KRUI Big Room Show & Concert Preview: Night Moves at Gabe’s this Wednesday, Oct. 15th!
Concert Preview: White Reaper w/ Lip Critic and World’s Worst at Gabe’s Oct. 4. An open-eyed look into the new record Only Slightly Empty