Labels: Bifocal Media
Review by: Ian Scanlon
A smart (but decidely short) little album here… this is a bit of cheek to not be advertised / priced as a mini lp as it’s less than half an hour and only 8 songs, but anyway! I downloaded it off Itunes for £6.32 which seemed reasonable to me. It’s indie kid, and just as we know it, they rock a two piece drums and guitar operation with the girl guitarist taking the vocals. It reminds alot of the early chunky jagged Unwound tracks (mind you I only have the collection of singles and the last album!), or similarly early Blonde Redhead, with some nice sideways lolloping rhythms underpinning the sharp guitars. They also wheel in a couple of the current indie rock stalwart extra instruments (note to self, learn to play glockenspiel properly, session work awaits), but it’s done appropriately. The singer is much more conventional than either of the previously mentioned bands though, coming on alot like Shannon Wright or occasionally like a double tracked and narked Julie Doiron, Or occasionally a little like Kat Bjelland through a fuzzbox (eg on “Jesus loves you (but yr still coming home with me tonight)” which starts like the Gossip then drops into a several disparate parts that seem to echo Rodan or June of 44 with some really nice guitar “work” as twats often say… (but it is nice!) . They start and finish the album with two very good acoustic numbers. “some are love” and “for bob riecke” which complement rock nicely. In short (and this is), I dug this. Plus, it appears that J Mascis can actually produce records which don’t feature lengthy guitar solos (if there was one here i missed it).