"I really never liked the tune I could carry in the end..."
I had some serious flashbacks / deja vu moments listening to the power pop punchy sounds of "Everyday Fear" by East Coast, now Los Angeles, transplants the world famous. The supercharged musicality, tightly wound guitar / bass and drums dance with sort of folk rock laced vox feel familiar, have the (super) sonic DNA of 90's outfits like Superdrag and Superchunk and 80's bands like The Plimsouls and Flesh for Lulu. I am so old that I have seen those bands back in the day (Superchunk then and just in 2018) and I will always have a soft spot for power pop punches and songs that pull and bend genres from different decades.
The revival rock waves that recycle, re-saturate indie scenes, invigorating minds and hearts again and again is important, not only for artistic fodder but because it has new generations of kids digging back into proto-punk, classic rock, and all the fusions with jazz, hip hop whatever.
Of "Everyday Fear", the band shares:
Lyrically, singer Will Harris tackles the experience of being bummed out in Los Angeles following a failed relationship and a number of musical false starts. Ultimately, though, the track is looking through a wider lens at love, aging, and the feeling of being in a new city that you don’t yet understand – and perhaps aren’t yet willing to.
The band's debut eponymous full-length, "totally famous", will be out later this year on Lauren Records.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
Los Angeles guitar champs the world famous are fighting pretty hard to stay in the light.
The band is, essentially, a Boston transplant; most band members, including singer/lyricist Will Harris, are originally from Massachusetts. Their sound feels at home enough in sunny California, calling back to bygone Weezer, but nonetheless feels thematically grounded in their native East Coast, often looking playfully askance at LA as it mines truth from the SoCal stereotypes we all know and love.
“It’s nice enough beneath the palm trees; it’s where I go to make ends meet,” lead single Hollywood Pawn opens. When he first moved across the country from Boston to Los Angeles, Harris would regularly pawn his guitar in order to afford the basics, then buy it back as soon as his paycheck came through. Staying in the light is a conscious choice throughout - never losing sight of the fact that things have improved since and that the high of getting his guitar back every time far outweighed the low of selling it.
There's a seafoam-colored positivity that threads its way in and out on Hollywood Pawn, only giving occasional glimpses of the darker currents that wend beneath the surface. Nonetheless, a common thread for the world famous is to poke fun at LA; it’s still not quite home for them - not in the same way that Boston, where they attended high school and formed their first bands, has always felt.
No comments:
Post a Comment