Pygmy Lush, whose members have cut their teeth in some of Northern Virginia's most influential hardcore bands of the last decade including Pg.99, Majority Rule, Malady, City of Caterpillar and Crestfallen, return with their much anticipated second full-length, Mount Hope. Pygmy Lush formed in the spring of 2005 on the very day two of their previous bands, Malady and Mannequin broke up. They started out by carrying on much of the same ferocity of their previous endeavors but a massive change was afoot. Somewhere in their early practices they had started four-tracking several quieter songs with acoustic guitars and minimal percussion. Their first record, Bitter River (Robotic Empire), was noise-punk tracks mixed in with some of the quieter songs. Those more restrained songs, which had at first been an aside, began to over take the set. Mike Taylor explains, "We liked the quiet stuff so much that we decided that our next plan was to write an entire quiet album." The sound suites them. The songs feel haunted. Still filled to the brim with a sense of abandon, only here they have put down their angst for introspection, traded their aggression for a slow grit. Not bad for a bunch of punks. Taylor continues, "We have not stopped playing or touring and we are all sick in the fucking head with music." It shows.