DeKALB | When you ask members of local band Loose Lips Sink Ships how to describe their music, there’s no concise answer.

Are they math-rockers? Experimental?

Here are some responses from the band:

“I usually tell people, ‘Do you like Metallica?'”

“Dave Matthews cover songs.”

“Our music is like trekking through the most treacherous quagmire of Vietnamese brothels.”

To celebrate the release of “Eating Happens,” their new split vinyl 7-inch with the revered Victor Villarreal, Loose Lips will headline tonight at The House Cafe, 263 E. Lincoln Highway, and it may be the band’s final show.

“Eating Happens” features the band’s curiously-named “Sarah Palin Parasailing” and Villarreal’s “Prophesying Hypothesis.”

Guitarist Matthew Frank had the opportunity to meet former Cap’n Jazz and Ghosts & Vodka member Villarreal after an employee at local studio Brick City Warehouse suggested he meet him.

“I remember thinking, ‘you’re f—— with me,’ he knows how much we adore him,” Frank said. “He’s like, ‘you’re not going to freak him out, are you?'”

For the past couple of years, Loose Lips has been touring and playing at places like The Metro and The Guesthouse in Chicago. The quartet has also been cranking out full-lengths, EP’s and 7-inches with their unique, no-vocal, instrumentally-focused take on music.

Some songs are sprawling, 16-minute explorations of sounds that no one else in DeKalb is producing. Others are tight, backed by appropriately incoherent titles like “Meth Is Fun” and “Coach Kukoc’s Croatian Couscous.”

The show is being billed as Loose Lips last show for quite some time as guitarist Conor Mackey will move and go to school in Minnesota. The remaining members of the band say they have no intention of replacing him. Mackey hopes that everyone who attends will be able to fully experience what could be the band’s curtain call in DeKalb.

“Bring your game face and get ready to take a knee,” he said.

While the band is on its hiatus, Frank hopes to start a new band in Chicago with vocalists and bassist Steve Marek hopes to improve his writing and complete his much-anticipated solo-album, “Acid Rain.”

When you ask members of Loose Lips how they want to be remembered in the DeKalb music scene after their last show, the answer is simple.

“Wasted a——-,” said drummer Jacob Boulay. “And he was cute before he went bald.”

 

The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7 and $5 with a flyer. The limited edition 7-inch “Eating Happens” can also be purchased at the show for $5.