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The Lillingtons adhered to the same Ramones-worshipping formula as their late-90s contemporaries: keep power-chord symphonies short and tight, keep beats simple and in pop-punk-appropriate time signatures, keep vocals in an upper-nasal register without sounding too much like a crazy person. But what made the Wyoming trio stand out, aside from being from Wyoming, was the lurking sinisterness found mostly in their artwork and the lyrics of Kody Templeman (now of Teenage Bottlerocket). Themes revolving around sci-fi saucer men, robots, and high-level espionage bleed into the music and very nearly make it sound dark. Death by Television (1999) and Backchannel Broadcast (2001)—both reissued by Red Scare Industries in ’05—remain as relistenable a pair of pop-punk albums as came out of the last few gasps of the Lookout era. —Kevin Warwick
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Public Enemy 7:45 PM Rock Stage
