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TwoLips Turns Resistance Into Confrontation on “DIE ON EVERY HILL”

glassefactoryJuly 30, 20262 Mins read21 Views

Across 19 tracks, TwoLips turns resistance into an experience defined by friction, intensity, and constant movement on “DIE ON EVERY HILL.” Written and performed by Kianah LongChase and produced by longtime collaborator Lightfoot, the debut album sits between darkwave and electro-goth while expanding into punk, rap, rave, metal, and occasional operatic elements. The record uses their contrasts to create a restless sound that shifts between distress signals, confrontational anthems, playful moments, and passages of contained tension.

LongChase is a Black and Indigenous artist of Dena’ina and Lakota descent whose interdisciplinary practice also includes dance, acting, circus, and visual art. Rooted in Los Angeles and the American Southwest, TwoLips approaches identity as contested and constantly shifting terrain. That perspective is also connected to LongChase’s musical background, as she joined a punk band at 15, yet recalls being repeatedly categorized as an R&B artist because of her identity, despite the central role that punk and metal have played in her creative formation. “DIE ON EVERY HILL” therefore represents both an expansion of her work and a return to some of her earliest musical foundations.

The production reflects the album’s central idea that conflict is not an interruption but the environment in which the songs exist. Industrial textures grind against urgent punk guitars, while percussion, rap passages, distortion, and operatic gestures move through arrangements that rarely settle into complete resolution. Melodies sometimes remain half-buried beneath layers of noise, and silences interrupt the songs with as much force as their loudest sections. That instability gives the album its physical dimension, carrying the listener through references to the ocean, desert, and swamp while reworking familiar images of Americana from the perspective of someone questioning who has historically been allowed to claim its land and narratives.

At first glance, the title seems to challenge performative outrage, but the album resists such a straightforward reading. Instead, it reflects on which struggles we choose for ourselves, which are passed down through history, and which emerge from experiences of displacement, cultural erasure, and violence.

“THE DIRT” and “VI0LENCE” operate as direct calls to action, while “BIG DEAL” and “GOING OUT” approach liberation through movement, sweat, and physical release. Elsewhere, “OVERFLOW” and “let it change you” allow grief and tenderness to emerge beneath the defiance. These quieter moments make the record’s more explosive sections feel increasingly volatile by revealing what the anger is attempting to protect.

Throughout “DIE ON EVERY HILL,” resistance is never presented as heroic, uncomplicated, or endlessly sustainable. TwoLips examines the exhaustion of constantly defending one’s identity alongside questions of lineage, belonging, survival, and collective memory, using sharp humor to prevent the album from becoming weighed down by its own seriousness. The record ultimately refuses a clean movement toward healing or political resolution. Anger, vulnerability, pleasure, grief, and unfinished conflict remain active until the end, suggesting that survival is not a final victory but an ongoing practice. Released through Final Girl Records, the album establishes LongChase as an artist who demands attention to the unstable ground on which identity, history, and resistance continue to be negotiated.

TwoLips is planning a series of live appearances that extend the album’s restless and confrontational energy beyond the studio. Starting with a listening party in Los Angeles on July 24, followed by a performance at The Echo on July 31, opening for Big Sis. The tour will continue in San Diego with GRRRL Music on August 4 and New Mexico on August 8, before reaching Phoenix on October 12 for Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Find TwoLips on Instagram.