The House Flies and the Eternal Search for Lost Literature

Liking a song can have a lot to do with the weather outside. Still, with rain pissing down for hours and my own nocturnal trips between a good snare and a lazy guitar, the timing felt quite appropriate. I let The House Flies install their cookies in my brain with Lost Literature, and now I’m paying the price by writing about it. Fair deal, really.

Lost Literature comes out to life as the second single from ‘Lions and Ore’, the band’s seven-track second album, due November 6 through Wilhelm & Sons Entertainment Company.

Who You Are, Who You Were

I’ll keep the bus ticket in my pocket. The House Flies are mobile enough through post-punk already, a genre that’s had a lifetime subscription somewhere between my ears for years. Nick Pompou scrapes the walls with the drums, while Ozzie Woods sets up a comfy little stage underneath it all with that bass line.

Around them, Alex Riggen and Burnie Eckhardt do proper justice to those darker guitars the band clearly enjoys living inside. Hail Mary. I said what I said.

And here comes the refrain: “And who you are / And who you were.” Simple words. Bit rude to make us think that hard, really. I was only breaking the seriousness of the lyric a little, without killing the mood, in case anyone’s asking.

Then the lyrics start throwing little things around everywhere. “Stereo we write we write we write the words you left” scratches the right bit of my brain. And I really love that repetition. Then you’ve got all those little details in the lyrics: old receipts, songs nobody cares about, random stuff nobody knows why they kept. Damn, this whole thing moves nicely.

The Road to Lions and Ore

The House Flies come from Moline, Illinois, and their story already stretches through the Glimmer EP, debut album Mannequin Deposit and 2025 single “Sweet Foxhound.” Post-punk, goth rock, shoegaze, grunge and melodic guitar territory, but I like how they’ve kept that Midwestern fingerprint intact. Lions and Ore also marks the first full album with the current four-piece lineup: Riggen on vocals and guitar, Eckhardt on guitar, Woods on bass and Pompou on drums.

The album campaign started with September’s Derelict Crawl. Lost Literature follows with a more rhythmic pull, while the accompanying video sends handmade marionettes into a worn 4:3 world of painted faces, strings, fabric and those weird little puppet moves. At that point, creepy puppets and post-punk feel like a perfectly normal combo.

Right, About That Album

The House Flies launch Lions and Ore on November 6, complete with a limited 100-copy black vinyl run and a release show at Raccoon Motel in Davenport, Iowa. The vinyl is already up for pre-order, if you want to be one of the lucky 100 getting your hands on a copy.

Until then, keep the radio low. Remember who you were, and follow The House Flies from here while buying some good music. And if it rains, just remember: liking a song can have a lot to do with the weather outside.