Labels: Jigsaw Records
Review by: MH
Some suitably off-kilter indie pop here from a half-British, half-American band based in San Diego. Note the Trumans Water reference in the band name. It actually took me about 25 attempts to download this one before I could start the review as the download kept failing – the lesson is that you should never use Optus for home internet if you live in Australia. Never works properly on a Tuesday – or a Monday for that matter. Sundays are no good either. Don’t try streaming TV too often unless you want it to be really slow for the next ten days. Anyway, part of the reason for my persistence in trying to download this was mention of Pavement, GBV and The Clean amongst the references. There are shades of those bands here and there throughout particularly Pavement in the vocals but this reminds me more of the likes of The Goon Sax. It’s an enjoyable sound – kind of melodic and mopey with stories told in each of the songs and a quirkiness to the lyrics – plus, there are enough references to London in songs like “Vauxhall” and “Bobby” to make me feel nostalgic about home. The aforementioned “Bobby” and the wistful “Trampoline” are the songs that caught my ear initially but I’ve had the album on fairly regular rotation at home lately.